


Collateral Damage

by dracusfyre



Series: Blood and Iron [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Loki, BAMF Tony Stark, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Other Marvel character cameos and honorable mentions, Self-Harm, has elements of Civil War and Winter Soldier but def not compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9087388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: When Steve stumbles upon SHIELD's ugly secrets, Tony and Loki try to destroy Hydra without losing everything they've built together in the process.  The problem is that SHIELD isn't the only one with secrets, is it?





	1. Shots Fired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sad part about the whole thing was that this wasn't even the worst day of Tony's life. Maybe not even in the top 5.

So for the record, before all the shit started, Tony would like for it to be known that he’d been having a Really Good Day.  In fact, it had also been a good week and a good month.  A good few months.  So when JARVIS announced that Natasha was calling, Tony was spending more time scooting around the lab on his wheelie chair and singing along to the radio than getting any work done, because even though Loki was in Asgard for three days he'd woken up in an uncommonly great mood.

“Natasha! How’s my favorite spy doing today?”  He looked at his watch. “This morning even!”

“Hey, Tony.”  

He went cold at the tone of her voice and let the chair roll to a stop against one of the work tables.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nick’s been assassinated.  You’ll see it on the news soon; long range sniper.  Right in Steve’s living room.”

“Holy shit." Tony rolled over to his computer, fingers flying over the keyboard as he searched for any mention of Director Fury.  "Is Steve ok? Never mind, I’ll be there soon, just tell me where to–"

“Don’t bother, Tony.”  She sounded exhausted and on the edge of tears.  Tony's fingers slowed to a stop and he frowned.  “There’s nothing…I don’t know what to do right now.” She inhaled shakily.  “It’s…never going to be the same, is it? Like it used to be, with all of us together.  Like it was after New York.”  She gave a long sigh and the line went quiet for a moment.  “I’ll talk to you later, Tony. I gotta go.”

Tony  stared into space as she ended the call.  “Nobody panic, but I think Natasha has been replaced by an alien,” he said finally.  

“Sir?” JARVIS asked after he had spent several minutes not moving.

 “She said 'all of us together like after New York.'  We weren’t together after New York, we all split up almost immediately.  The last thing we really did as a team was-” Tony straightened so suddenly that he almost fell off his stool.  “Son of a bitch.”

 

Thirty minutes later he made his way to the shawarma place right around the corner from the tower, leaving through the service garage wearing the grungiest clothes he could find in his closet.  Steve and Nat were already there, picking idly at a plate in front of them.  The air in the restaurant was humid and thick with the smell of roasted meat and tzatziki sauce, topped with a soupcon of body odor. Tony edged through the lunch rush crowd and found a chair to drag up to their table. 

“Hipster! I like it.  Nice glasses.”

Nat smiled wanly at him.  “Thanks, Tony.  You look like a hobo that mugged a grad student.”

“You say the nicest things, Natasha.”  Tony tilted his sunglasses down to get a good look at them.  Steve was unusually quiet and had lines of tension around his eyes and despite the smile, Nat was worried. “First, tell me what happened to Fury. The news isn’t saying shit.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.  From what I understand, he was driving home and got ambushed. I don’t know how that wasn’t in the news, because I saw the damage to his vehicle.  All of that went down right in the middle of DC. But instead of going to a hospital or back to HQ, he goes to Steve’s house. Then someone shot him, three times, center mass. Through a brick wall.”

“Any idea who?”  Nat glanced at Steve and must have kicked him under the table, because he came out of his thoughts with a start.

“I don’t know.  I tried to chase him down but he was fast. And he had a metal arm.”

“Solid metal? Fully articulated, full range of motion?” There was only one other place where he’d seen someone with a prosthetic arm with that quality.

“Yeah, it seemed like it. Had a big red star right on the shoulder. He caught my shield right out of the air like it was a Frisbee.”

“Huh.” It was a long shot, but… “Was any other part of him metal? Like his face?”

Steve and Natasha were both looking at him strangely. “Well, he was wearing a mask on his face and had grease paint around his eyes.  But other than the one arm he was fully dressed, so I guess I can’t say how much of him was made of metal,” Steve said slowly.

“Right, ok.” He slouched back in his chair.  “I just have a thing about cyborgs.  I’m sorry to hear about Fury.  You don’t find people like him every day, for better or worse.  So why are we here?”

Natasha slid her hand into his under the table.  In her palm was a thumb drive. “We think Fury was killed for this.  We need to know what’s on it.”

“What’s the catch?”  Tony glanced at it briefly before putting it in his pocket.

“One, it’s probably encrypted, and two, as soon as we try to access the data we’re probably going to have a STRIKE team after us.”

“A STRIKE team? You mean SHIELD is looking for you?” Tony sat up straight and tried not to look over his shoulder.

“Rumlow’s whole team tried to apprehend me at SHIELD headquarters.” Steve leaned back and pulled his shirt up, showing Tony some partially healed electricity burns. “They weren’t asking nicely.”

Tony drummed his fingers on the cheap formica table for a moment, then came to a decision.  “Ok. Well, my first impulse would be to suggest the tower, but I’m not excited by the thought of painting a giant target on my home.  Again. So we’ll go where they can’t get the drop on us.”

“And where would that be?”

“In the air.  My jet has almost all the computing capabilities of the tower, and I defy a STRIKE team to sneak up on us. I’ll call Happy to pick us up.”

“Ok, well a private plane wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’s a good idea.  No cars, though – we still have to lay low, and you don’t even _own_ a car that isn’t high profile.”  Natasha stood and tilted her head towards the back exit of the restaurant.

“So how do we get to the airfield? It’s outside the city.” They followed her out into the alley.  Tony stepped gingerly around an unidentifiable mess on the pavement and tried not to gag. Reason number seven why he always ordered takeout.  God bless New York, but it _smelled._

“The way normal people do, Tony,” she said, heading for a set of stairs leading under the street.

“Public transportation. Oh, _goody._ ”  And he’d thought that alleyway had smelled.  “I don’t think I’ve ever been on the metro.”

“Well, I apologize in advance for forcing you to spend time amidst the unwashed masses.  Your sacrifice is appreciated.”

Tony bitched, only half seriously, the whole time they were waiting for the train until he noticed that Steve probably hadn’t heard a word they’d said since they left the restaurant. So he nudged him with his foot.  “You seem like you have something on your mind, Steve.”

Steve’s eyes focused on him and he looked around at the disinterested New Yorkers sharing the platform with them.  He hunched his shoulders, like that could keep anyone from eavesdropping. “Do you know Secretary Pierce?” 

“Sure.  He has a killer wine cellar. Why?”

“Right before Rumlow tried to get the drop on me we had a really odd conversation.”

“Odd how?” Natasha said sharply.  “You didn’t mention this before.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.  I didn’t have much time to think about it until the ride up here.”  The train arrived with a screech of brakes and whoosh of hot, stale air, and somehow being crammed in a train car with barely enough room to breathe seemed a bad place to continue the conversation.

 

A train and two buses later, they were finally up in the air.  Once they were at cruising altitude Tony set it to autopilot and joined them in the back, pouring himself a whiskey as a reward for surviving that panic attack inducing experience with the New York Metro Transit Authority.

“Alright, let’s see what super-secret spy stuff is hiding on this drive,” he said, plugging it into his onboard laptop.  Nat and Steve came around to look over his shoulder as letters, numbers, and characters filled the screen.  “Ok, that would be the encryption.  JARVIS, what’s your take?”

“Sir, this is an extremely sophisticated level of encryption. It appears that it is keyed to a biometric signature.”

“Meaning that we need a person to unlock it, not just that person’s password,” Tony said for Steve’s benefit.

“I know what biometric means, Tony.”

“Well pardon me, Secret Squirrel.  Can you get around the biometrics, JARVIS?”

“No sir.  I believe that a new decryption protocol would need to be invented to circumvent biometric encryptions.”

“Well good job, you guys.  You found something JARVIS can’t hack.  Yet.” They both sat down across from him in disappointment.  Tony studied the encryption but his thoughts were far away.  He hadn’t kept up with the latest in the encryption industry beyond routinely upgrading his own security protocols.  Apparently it was time to get back into the hacking business; he didn’t like knowing there was someone out there that could do something he couldn’t.  “But this does narrow down the list of where it came from.  Any civilian companies developing this level of encryption would be contracting out to the military, intel agencies-"

“Or SHIELD.”

Tony looked at Steve over the top of the computer and sat back in his chair.  Steve stared at him steadily.  “Let me get this straight.  Nick himself gave you this before he died in your arms, and then you got ambushed at SHIELD headquarters because they thought you had it. So do you think that SHIELD itself is dirty, or that Fury was?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said after a moment, glancing at Natasha.  “Before he died he told me not to trust anyone.”

Tony looked at the both of them, finally noticing the stiff postures and realizing that they hadn’t really talked to or looked at each other this whole time. Natasha noticed the question in his eyes and shook her head minutely.

“Well, what about Pierce?” Tony said instead.  “Figure out what was bothering you?”

Steve picked at a spot on his ridiculous skinny jeans for a moment, jaw working, before he looked up.  “Pierce said that Fury may have been killed because he was trying to sell what was on the drive, and the sale went south.  I told him I didn’t believe that, but…I don’t know.”

“Well, SHIELD’s goons attacked you this morning, after you talked to Pierce,” Tony pointed out.  “Obviously that wasn’t Nick.”

“There’s no question that someone is dirty, and either it was Director Fury, not Director Fury, or not _just_ Director Fury,” Natasha said tiredly, leaning her seat back and closing her eyes. “And the answers we need might be on that drive.  So is there anything else you can tell us about it, JARVIS?” 

 “It appears that the file originated in – Sir, there is a missile locked on to your position.”

 “What? A _missile?_ ”  Tony echoed in disbelief.  For a second, everyone froze in shock. The cabin lights dimmed, oxygen masks dropped down from the ceiling and Tony's stomach swooped as the plane dipped and banked left to deploy countermeasures.  Steve and Natasha fumbled to put their seat belts and Tony cursed as he banged his knee on the table trying to get out of his seat.

“Impact in-"

Tony didn’t even hear what JARVIS said, he was too busy scrambling for the back of the plane. “Brace yourselves, I’ve got a suit –"

That was as far as he got before the missile tore through the cockpit and detonated in the right engine.


	2. Opening Moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, maybe this is in the top ten Worst Days.

Tony was thrown against the side of the plane, seeing stars as his head bounced off a window.   Steve and Natasha fumbled for oxygen while Tony struggled to get to the back of the plane.

“JARVIS! Deploy the suit!” He tried to shout over the rushing wind, but there was no response.  He did his best to take a deep breath despite the vacuum trying to suck the air from his lungs and climbed the seats until he reached the keypad recessed into the bulkhead.  Just as the edges of his vision were growing dark he managed to open it, and got dizzy with relief when he felt his suit assembling around him.

“JARVIS-how-” but he suddenly didn’t have the air to speak as his lungs seized up.

“Sir, you are hyperventilating. I am administering an-”

“Just – do – it,” he managed, still trying to make his way back to Steve and Nat even though it felt like he was suffocating.  As he was ripping their seatbelts off the meds hit, and he had to take a few seconds just to gulp air.  “Ready?” He asked, and both of them nodded and took their masks off.  Steve held Nat tight to his chest as Tony blasted another hole in the bulkhead and locked the fingers of a gauntlet around Steve’s wrist.

Just as they were clearing the plane the damaged wing sheared off, trailing smoke.  The rest of the plane disintegrated quickly from there, scattering pieces over a few square miles of rural New Jersey.

“JARVIS, any sign where the missile came from?”

“It was an SA-11 surface-to-air missile, sir.”

“Shit.  So they are probably long gone.”  Tony brought them in for a landing, dropping them off gently in a field away from where his plane was burning merrily.  He opened the face plate to take a deep breath, lungs still aching, and looked at the smoke rising above the trees.  “Do you know this is the second time in less than a year that someone has tried to crash a plane with me on it?”

Natasha rubbed her palms against her jeans, trying to hide how much they were shaking. “Must be your winning personality.”

“Guess so.” He turned to the others.  “So.  Anyone want to guess how in the hell they knew we were on that plane?”

“No.  I think it’s pretty clear that whatever the hell is going on here, it’s big.”

“Yeah, I’ll say.  Like firing a SAM at a private passenger plane on US soil kind of big.” Tony kicked a rock and tried not to think about what Pepper would say.  Or Loki.

“First things first, though.  Where are we?”

“Good question.” Tony closed the face plate.  “JARVIS?”

“Sir, you are in Wharton State Forest, New Jersey.” Tony and Steve made matching sounds of disgust.  Because _New Jersey._  Natasha rolled her eyes.  “If I may, sir, before the plane crashed I was going to say that the encrypted file originated in New Jersey.  I have already sent you the coordinates.”

Steve cursed.  “The file.  The drive was on the plane.”

“Give me some credit, Rogers.” Natasha pulled the thumb drive from her pocket.  “After everything I’m not going to lose it now.”

“Well, according to JARVIS the file originated not too far from here, so grab on, kids.”

 

“The file came from Camp Lehigh?” Steve said incredulously when they landed.

Tony took off his helmet.  “You know this place?  Looks like it’s been closed for years.  Got that creepy, abandoned vibe going.”  In most of these buildings there were more broken windows than unbroken and the weeds were waist high. Even the graffiti looked tired and faded.

“This camp is where I was trained.”

“Oh yeah? Huh. Before or after Erskine and dear old Dad got their hands on you?”

“Before.” Steve said absently, looking around as if trying to catalogue the differences from his memory.

“Well, then if you were going to create a top-secret file with unbreakable encryption here, where would you do it?”  The crunch of Tony’s boots on gravel echoed weirdly with all the brick buildings. Nat jumped on an elevated sidewalk to get a signal boost, but after walking back and forth for a minute she shook her head.

“I think this is a dead end.  There’s nothing here, no heat signatures, no radio.  No sign of life at all.  Must have used a router to throw people off.”

“Give me some credit, Nat.  No way JARVIS would have fallen for that.  There’s something here, we just have to find it.”

“Split up? Cover more ground?” Natasha said with a small smile.  “It’s going to be dark soon.”

“Way to go, Nat, you had to make everything creepier –"

“You guys! Over here.” Steve waved them over to a building built into the ground on the other side of the parade square.  With the other larger buildings around, it would be easy to mistake it for a utility or storage shed.  “This is a munitions bunker , and it is way too close to the barracks.  It shouldn’t be here.”

Tony and Nat looked at each other as Steve broke the lock on the door. “Good a place to start as any, I suppose,” she said philosophically, and followed Steve inside.

“Easy for you to say.  You’re probably going to be the only one to survive whatever horror movie we’ve stumbled into.”

Her laughed echoed.  Whatever room they were walking into was huge.  “I’m touched that you think I’d be the final girl.”

Steve found a light switch, and to their surprise, a few of the fluorescent lights overhead actually turned on, buzzing loudly.  They all stared at the giant faded logo painted on the far wall of the room.  “It’s…SHIELD?”

They wandered around the neatly arranged rows of antique metal desks, mostly empty but for a thick layer of dust.  Tony's path took him to where a series of portraits still hung on the wall.  At the end of the row, after the traditional pictures of the president, vice president, and secretary of defense, was Howard Stark.  He blew the dust off the picture and straightened it. He laughed a little when he saw that the picture of Aunt Peggy was still as straight as the day it was hung.  “Never could keep my dad in line, could you, Aunt Peggy?”

“Aunt Peggy?” Steve echoed, coming up behind him.  “You know Agent Carter?”

“Oh, yeah.  She and Dad stayed pretty close after the war.  She would come over and yell him when he hadn’t left the lab in weeks, or when he got caught with another woman, or when he and I got into a fight.” _So about once a week_ , Tony thought.  _Especially when I turned 16._

“I didn't know that.  Sounds like her.”

“Yeah. I stayed with her for a while after Mom and Dad died. She insisted.” Tony turned to Steve. “You know, she’s the main reason why I agreed to work with you when Fury came to me.  Dad idolized you, but Aunt Peggy always talked about you as a person. She was the one to give me the ‘fondue’ lecture when I was thirteen,” Tony smirked as Steve groaned and shook his head.

“Hey, fellas? Not to interrupt your male bonding, but I’ve got something over here.”  They found Natasha in the back of a storage room, studying a wall of empty shelves.  She held a hand up to a crack in the wall.  “There’s air coming from behind these shelves.”

Together Tony and Steve forced the secret door open, the hidden mechanism screeching in protest.  The metal doors at the end of the short hallway in front of them were definitely built recently, compared to the rest of the building. “Huh.  Secret elevator in a previously unknown SHIELD facility in an abandoned army base. Not sketchy at all.”

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Steve said.  “I think someone should stay up here and keep watch.”

Tony stared at him in disbelief. “Uh, did you hear what I just said? There is no way I’m not going to see what’s at the bottom of that elevator.  You can’t tell me you aren’t dying to know what’s down there.”

“C’mon, Rogers.  No one knows we are here.  Whoever fired a missile at us probably thinks we are dead.  Let’s just go check it out.”  Nat scanned the keypad with her phone and then pushed the keys.  After a moment a green light flashed and the elevator dinged.   At the bottom it took them a little longer to find the lights, but when they came on Tony whistled long and low at the scene in front of them.

“Look at the cutting edge 1970s technology. With all of these magnetic reels, they may have been able to hold one whole kilobyte of data.” Tony ran a finger along the dust on one of the towers.  “Nobody has been writing encryption on these bad boys since Lyndon Johnson.”

“That isn’t from the 70s,” Steve said quietly.  He and Nat were looking at a USB interface sitting on a desk with a handful of monitors, looking as out of place as cell phone in a telegraph office. Natasha turned over the USB drive in her hand before putting it in one of the ports.

Around them, the towers and magnetic reels started coming to life, rotating slowly. Tony spun in a slow circle, watching the ancient machines click and whirr. “And just that quickly, we are out of a spy movie and back into a horror movie.”

One of the monitors flickered on.  “Initiate system?” Natasha typed in yes and hit enter.  The towers started humming faster though the screen went black.  “Shall we play a game?” She said with a grin.

“More like, ‘open the pod bay doors, Hal.’”

Natasha and Tony smirked at each other while Steve just shook his head.  “Yes, I understood _both_ of those references, thank you,” he said when they turned to look at him.

After a moment, the screen came back to life.  Instead of words, though, lines of green and black came together to sketch out a face.  A familiar face, judging from the way Steve went still.

“Rogers, Steven Grant.  Born 1918.”  A camera on top of the bay of monitors panned over. “Stark, Anthony Edward. Born 1970.  Romanov, Natalia Alienova. Born 1984.  A pleasure to finally see you again, Captain Rogers.”

“So anyone want to theorize why the computer has a German accent and knows who we are?”  Tony said into the silence that followed.

“You do not recognize me, Captain? Perhaps it is because I am not the man I was when you took me prisoner in 1945.” A black and white photograph appeared on one of the other monitors of a rabbity looking man, with a broad forehead and glasses.

“Zola. He was a scientist that worked for Hydra during the war.  But he’s been dead for years.”

“Incorrect, Captain. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis.  Science could not save my body, but my mind, however…Now I live on 200,000 feet of databanks.”  They all looked around at the warehouse sized room filled with whirring towers.  “You are standing in my brain.”

“No way.  No way they knew how to download a human brain into a computer in the 1970s, that’s bullshit.”

“I assure you that I am quite real, Anthony Stark.  Your father was instrumental in the process,” the computer answered smugly.

"More importantly, what is a Hydra scientist doing in an old SHIELD bunker?”

“My guess would be that he was one of the many scientists recruited by SHIELD after the war," Natasha said slowly.  "Someone must have thought he had strategic value.”  She must have been starting to share Steve’s bad feeling because Tony saw her glancing back at the elevator.  Steve, however, only had eyes for the computer.

“Quite right, Ms. Romanova.  I agreed to help their cause, and along the way, helped my own.”

“ _Your_ cause?  Hydra died with the Red Skull.”

A symbol of a skull with six tentacles flashed on the screen.  “We are Hydra, Captain Rogers.  Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place.”

“I don’t believe you.”

In the far side of the room, the sound of new towers whirring to life echoed. “Accessing archives.”  The photo of a stern looking man in a Nazi uniform flickered on screen. “Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. We did not realize, however, that if you try to _take_ that freedom, people resist.” Footage from the Normandy landing, the bombing of Dresden, and other clips from the 1940s flashed by.  Captain America featured prominently in a few of them. “The war taught us much.” More newsreels.  The surrender. Planes flying over Germany and Italy, posters of Hitler being thrown on a fire.  “Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly.  When SHIELD was founded and I was recruited, the new Hydra grew.”  The images were coming faster, but Tony recognized Peggy and Howard among them. “A beautiful parasite, growing inside SHIELD.  For 70 years, Hydra has secretly been feeding crises around the world.”  All of them drew closer to the screen as more footage played, images from the Cold War, from Vietnam and Korea and Africa and the Middle East. “We’ve been sowing war and reaping the harvest.”

“That’s impossible.  SHIELD would have stopped you.”

Tony’s heart stopped when a headline appeared on the screen. _Howard and Maria Stark Die in Car Accident._ “Accidents will happen, fraulein. Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice freedom for security.” 

Tony shoved his way between Nat and Steve. “Go back, you fucking Nazi zombie.  What did you mean by that? What was that?” He turned to Steve. “Did you see that?” He pounded his fists on the metal desk, voice rising.  “Are you telling me that Hydra had my parents assassinated?”

But the voice continued on inexorably.  “Once the purification process is complete, Hydra’s new world order will arise. We won, Captain. In the end, your life and your death both mean nothing.”

With a roar Tony put his fist through the monitor.  “Answer the question!”

Zola’s image came up on a different screen.  “You have your father’s temper, Anthony Stark. As I was saying – “

Steve put a hand on Tony's shoulder and gave him a warning look.  With a glare Tony shrugged him off and walked away. “What’s on this drive, Zola?”

“The answer to that question is fascinating, truly one of my greatest works. But I must confess that I have been stalling, Captain.  It is time for you to be introduced to my crowning personal achievement- the Fist of Hydra.”

“Yep, definitely time to get out of here.” Natasha grabbed the zip drive and started running for the elevator, Steve right on her heels.

Tony backed away from the monitors, at the face that was laughing at them. Before he followed them onto the elevators he carefully aimed rockets at every corner of the room. “Stay dead this time, you Nazi-Hydra piece of shit.”

“What or who-ever the Fist of Hydra is, they are probably outside waiting for us,” Natasha said. The elevator shook a little as something in the computer room below them exploded.

“And you don’t even have your shield.  Here I thought you even slept with that thing.”

“Well it’s a little conspicuous, Tony. Natasha made me leave it in DC.”

“So I’m the point man.  Not a problem.” Tony put his helmet back on as they went back to the entrance they came in. “Stay behind me.” He started to push the door open and hesitated.

“Nat-“  Luckily he had partially turned to talk to Natasha, so instead of going right through the arc reactor the bullet punched through his left arm and grazed his ribs before making a hole in the concrete behind them.

Natasha reacted the fastest, grabbing Tony and somehow managing to pull him inside and close the door at the same time.  “Well, someone is definitely out there.” As if to underline that assessment, more bullets started making holes in the reinforced solid metal door.

Tony was in shock. He held up his arm and saw the hole in the armor. “I’ve…been shot?”

“Armor piercing round. They were prepared.”

“Who shot me? I don’t think I’ve ever been shot before. It went through my suit!” Tony was still staring at his in disbelief.  A drop of blood slid down to his elbow and fell to the floor.

"Tony!”

“What?” Tony finally looked up to see Steve staring at him in concern.

“How bad is it? Do we need to get the suit off?”

“It’s only a flesh wound, sir.” JARVIS flashed up a schematic of the injury on the HUD. “No suit functions have been compromised.”

"I’m fine, Steve.  I have – there are protocols.”  Indeed, as soon as the suit registered damage it sprayed the wound with an antiseptic, analgesic aerosol compound to stop the bleeding.  He stared at the hole in his armor until the dizziness passed.  “I’m not going to be arm wrestling anyone anytime soon though.”

“Can you fight?”

“Yeah.” Tony blew out a long breath, steadying himself. “Ok.  So we need a better plan. Any ideas?” The firing outside stopped.  Not a good sign.

“Go high.  You are best in the sky, get out of this guy’s range and light them up.  That will provide cover for Nat and me to try to get the drop on some of them.”

“Got it.”  Tony took a deep breath and plowed through the perforated door.  As he gained altitude, his HUD highlighted seven armed men that had taken cover behind a low wall with a single dark-haired man standing on top, face hidden behind a dark mask and goggles.  Immediately below him were a HMV and two black SUVs parked in a rough semicircle on the gravel the front of the bunker.  He sent a rocket into each of the vehicles and the men using them for cover were blown backwards they exploded, sending greasy black smoke into the sky. 

The man standing on the wall didn’t even flinch, but was tracking Tony with his rifle with single-minded focus.  In the air, though, Tony was too maneuverable, and after two shots the man seemed to recognize that.  His arm glinted in the sunlight as the man threw down the rifle and jumped off the wall.  Bullets pinged off his suit from the men who had been using the low wall for cover while Mr. Roboto ripped the door off a burning vehicle and sent it spinning through the air. 

“Whoa, shit!” Tony dodged the first one but the second hit him square in the thigh.  The third just grazed his helmet. “Alright, asshole, two can play that game.” He caught the next one and sent it spinning back at him. His HUD alerted him that Steve and Nat had taken their chance to sprint out of the bunker, so Tony flew a little lower to keep everyone’s attention on him and almost took an RPG to the back for his trouble.  A repulsor blast and that man was down for the count, but then he felt something jerk on his leg and he lost a few feet of height.

What the-” The man jerked again, and the grappling hook he’d looped around Tony’s ankle pulled him closer to the ground.  “You fucker,” Tony swore, and turned his repulsors on full power.  Tony dragged him as far as a nearby walkway, but when the man braced himself against the concrete and wrapped the line around his metal wrist Tony was pulled up short.

“Light him up, JARVIS,” he snarled, but then Steve came out of nowhere with a car door and body checked him.  Tony shot up into the air as the assassin went rolling across the gravel and came to his feet with a knife in hand.  Steve kept the car door raised like a shield as the two circled each other warily. 

After a moment, he spotted Natasha, who had taken cover behind the low retaining wall and was using a rifle she had picked up from somewhere to take out the STRIKE guys as they tried to get the drop on Steve. Tony's HUD found four remaining hostiles, not including the man currently trying to slice Steve to pieces.  Tony shot the one that had circled around behind Natasha and flew lower, watching for an opening to help Steve.  The man must have been superhumanly strong in addition to having his metal arm because he was blocking blows that would have broken another man’s bones.  Somewhere along the way the man had lost his goggles, and as he slowly cornered Steve against one of the burning vehicles his eyes were cold and distant.

Steve must have realized that he was losing ground because he took a punch to the ribs that made him grunt but that gave him the opening to put the other man in a wrist lock.  Super soldier muscles strained as the man fought his grip, but after a moment Steve forced him to drop the knife.  Quick as a snake, the man’s metal arm shot out and his fingers closed around Steve’s throat and lifted him into the air.

Tony raised his arm to blast the man in the back but Natasha vaulted onto his shoulders, trying to wrap a garrote around his throat. Still eerily silent, the man dropped Steve, reached back, and threw Natasha against the windshield of the HMV. He stalked towards her, pulling the rifle from the harness on his upper back.

“Bucky?”  The man’s movements slowed. When he turned to face Steve Tony saw that the man’s mask was gone.  To his surprise, the mask wasn’t hiding some kind of facial scarring or deformity; Mr. Murder was actually kind of hot.  But he clearly still had murder on his mind, judging from the way the muzzle of his gun swung from Natasha to Steve.  Tony landed beside Steve, repulsors armed and missiles at the ready.  The man’s eyes flicked between them, and then in one smooth movement he slung his rifle over his back and was sprinting away.

“Shit! Bucky!” Steve was right behind him until one of his ridiculous hipster shoes fell off and he stumbled, landing on a body that groaned at the impact. 

Tony lifted his face plate and turned to Natasha, who limped up beside him, trying to catch her breath.  “Who the hell is Bucky?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took as long as it did. Action scenes are the worst!


	3. An Uneasy Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Tony, and Nat rest, regroup, and try to figure out where to go from here.

Steve tried to catch up to him before he reached the edge of the base, but the man was over the fence and gone, vanished into the woods.  Behind them, the remains of the vehicles were still burning, sending oily black smoke into the air.  Someone groaned and somewhere a walkie-talkie was spitting noise.

Natasha put a hand on his shoulder when she caught up.  “You’re not going to find him now, Steve. Come on. We have to go.”

“Yeah.  There’s a news chopper on the way and I’m sure the cops aren’t far behind.  Whoever this guy is you aren’t going to be able to do him any favors from jail.” Tony looked up at the sky; the HUD zoomed in on the helicopter, less than a mile away and closing fast.  “We need an inconspicuous way out of here.  Looks like your boy had the right idea.” Tony cut a hole in the fence and followed them through to the anonymity of the woods.

After a short hike Natasha found a gas station to wash up in and stole a pickup with a covered bed while Tony hid in the woods and watched Steve stare off into space.  He tried to get him to say more about Bucky but every time Steve just shook his head, jaw tight.  When Natasha pulled up Tony climbed into the back awkwardly but gratefully; despite the suit’s countermeasures, now that the adrenaline was fading he was getting tired and his arm was starting to ache.  They were detouring through Pennsylvania when the truck pulled over suddenly.

Tony turned and tapped on the window.  “What’s wrong?”  He could see Nat scrambling for her seatbelt and cursing.

“The drive!” She said in disgust, pulling it out of her pocket. Having run out of English curses she switched to Russian as she pried the casing apart.  “That’s how they found us. And Fury.  There must be a tracking device in the drive!”

“Shit,” Steve breathed, when she finally got the casing apart and found the tiny GPS transmitter. “Now what?”

She turned it over in her hand, thinking furiously. Finally she put the truck back in drive and pulled back onto the road.  “I have an idea.”

Turns out her idea was to ditch the device in a room at the seediest, most remote hotel they could find and then get as far away as possible.  They drove around New England for four more hours and switched cars twice before Natasha felt safe enough to head back to Stark Tower. 

Tony spent the rest of the ride staring out the window and hearing Zola’s evil, ferrety voice playing in his head: _A beautiful parasite, growing inside SHIELD…accidents will happen._ He flexed his arm, wincing as the ache sharpened, and wondered how he’d ever let himself be convinced that his parents’ death was an accident.  

It was full dark by the time they finally pulled back into the service garage. Tony had JARVIS order in Chinese food while he went to see the on-call doctor; the analgesic from his suit had finally worn off completely, and his arm was on fire from wrist to shoulder. Less than an hour later, Tony joined Steve and Natasha in the common area with a bandage, a sling, and a stern warning not to mix painkillers with alcohol. And also enough information about James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes to make him feel like he should say something to Steve, but he had absolutely no idea what.  So the silence that fell over them while they unenthusiastically ate dinner was oppressive; Steve didn’t want to talk about Bucky, Tony didn’t want to talk about his parents, and Natasha didn’t want to talk about SHIELD.  Halfway through a carton of chicken lo mein Tony didn’t so much get full as he got tired of being vertical so he set his dinner aside with a sigh.  Natasha had finished a while ago and was curled up on one side of the couch, staring into space, while Steve was on his second container of sweet and sour pork and was stabbing it with his fork like it had offended his mother.

“Ok guys and dolls, I’m out.  JARVIS can direct you to the guest rooms when you are ready to sleep,” he said, carefully leveraging himself out of the chair. “Sleep tight, and try not to get killed before morning.”

Natasha murmured “good night” but Steve didn’t even look up, still lost in whatever thoughts had him scowling darkly at his food. 

Finally alone and in his room, Tony kicked off his gross clothing and was able to collapse – carefully – in bed, too tired and achy to even pull the covers back.  He stared at the dark ceiling, praying for the painkillers to kick in soon. He was so tired that it felt like his body was trying to melt into the mattress, but his arm still hurt and he couldn’t get his mind to stop repeating _accidents will happen._  

“Sir, Ms. Potts is calling again.  Should I put her through?”

“Again? How many times has she called?”

“This is the third time today, sir.”

“Aw, fuck,” Tony groaned. Maybe he wouldn't be in too much trouble if he talked to her now, but if he dodged her again there would be overly-concerned hell to pay.  “Yeah, put her through.”

“Tony! Thank God, how are you?”  Pepper sounded relieved and, surprisingly, not as angry as he thought she’d be.

“Hey, Pepper. I’m fine, finally home.  Am I on the news again?”

"Not yet. A few hours ago though I got a call from the National Transportation Safety Board notifying me that there was a pile of smoking debris with Stark Technologies written all over it covering half of New Jersey.  When I didn’t reach you the first time JARVIS filled me in on what happened.”

Tony mentally patted himself on the back for upgrading JARVIS’s answer protocols for this very purpose. For her to sound this relaxed, though, JARVIS must not have told her about the gunshot wound.  “Did they at least thank me for improving the landscape?”

“Tony,” she said repressively, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“Yeah, I’m ok.  Just tired.”

Pepper made a sympathetic noise.  “I’m in Hong Kong right now, but I can be home tomorrow.  It would have been sooner if you hadn’t, you know, blown up the jet.”

“One, not my fault, ok. Bad guys did that. Two, you should stay in Hong Kong, I don’t want you anywhere near this mess.”

“Mess? You think there will be more?”  He winced at the new note of alarm in her voice.

“Probably.  But Steve and Nat are here, and Loki’s coming home soon, so…please, just stay safe.” 

The line was quiet for a while and then he heard her sigh. “Loki’s going to be there?”  He rolled his eyes a little when she said that, like Loki was the responsible one.

“Yeah.  We’ll figure this mess out, fix it, and then I’ll take you out to dinner,” Tony promised.  “Something you can’t get in Hong Kong.  Like Mexican. Nobody outside this hemisphere does Mexican food properly.”

“Ok.”  They spent another few minutes with Pepper filling Tony in on the news from Hong Kong while he made appropriate noises at acceptable intervals, then she hung up the phone after extracting a promise from Tony to call tomorrow.  The sound of the call being disconnected seemed abnormally loud in his dark, empty bedroom.  

Tony cleared his throat against the sudden stab of loneliness. “JARVIS, when did Loki say he was going to be back?”

“The earliest he anticipated returning was tomorrow evening, sir.”

He swallowed thickly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give him a call for me, please.”  His cell phone was blown to pieces somewhere in New Jersey.  He made a mental note to dig up a replacement in the morning.

The phone rang long enough that Tony was about to hang up rather than leaving a voicemail, but Loki answered at the last second.  “Good evening, Stark,” he said warmly.

“Hey, Loki.  How’s your, uh, thing going? The diplomatic thing?”

Loki’s chuckle was pleased and slightly evil.  Tony relaxed and smiled a little at the sound.  “Quite well.  They clearly have no idea who they are dealing with.”

“I feel bad for them already.”

Loki hmmed, cheerfully unsympathetic.  “Life has harsh lessons for us all.”

“Ugh.  Don’t remind me.” At that, Tony remembered that he was dirty and sweaty lying on clean sheets.  He tried to sit up, forgetting his arm, and fell back into the bed with a bit-off cry of pain and frustration.

“Stark?” Loki asked, suspicious. “What was that?”

“I may have had a no good, terrible, horrible bad day,” he said with a sigh.  Thankfully the pain was starting to ebb, as long as he didn't try to _use_ the arm, but that just left him wanting a shower but too tired to take one.  “Someone blew up my plane.” The line was silent, but Tony could feel the mounting rage on the other end. “And then I got shot.”  He heard the beep as the call ended and then felt the bed dip as Loki sat down.

“Show me,” he said, carding his fingers through Tony’s hair.  He turned his head into the touch with another sigh, this one of relief as the last knots of tension started to relax.  Oh yeah, those painkillers had definitely set in.

“I’m fine. See?” He pointed to the relatively small bandage on his arm. “No broken bones, no arteries. I got lucky.”

Loki studied him intently, then looked down and tapped the arc reactor gently. “They were aiming for this, weren’t they?”

“Yeah, probably.”  Tony covered Loki’s hand with his own.

“I will find him and rip his heart out.”

“Aww, that’s sweet of you to say.”  Now that the pain was gone and Loki was here, the stress of the day was melting into a wonderful lassitude.  He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, so he tugged on Loki’s arm, smiling when he felt him lay down beside him.  “Declarations of vengeance later.  For now, I almost died twice today and I need someone to feel sorry for me.”

Loki murmured something in response, his voice a comforting rumble, but Tony was already sliding into a deep well of exhausted sleep, not even able to muster words when he felt Loki pull a blanket over him.

 

Tony didn’t wake up at the first knock on his bedroom door, or even the fifth.  It wasn’t until the autonomous suit he’d set to guard the door whirred to life that he jolted unpleasantly to wakefulness, cursing as he moved his arm the wrong way.

“Tony?”  Natasha said through the door, quietly but impatiently.

“What?” He said crankily, opening the door and squinting at her with one eye open.

She raised one eyebrow and quirked a smile when she saw him.  “Nice bed head.”

Tony closed his eyes and rested his head against the door jamb.  A yawn cracked his jaw.  “What do you want, Nat?”

“Someone’s here and needs to talk to us. Steve’s already downstairs.”

That woke him up more.  “JARVIS? Who can get into my tower without you notifying me first?”

“Sir, you gave SHIELD Deputy Director Maria Hill free access to the tower on March 13, 2011. And last night you directed that all non-emergency-”

“Got it, JARVIS.  Maria’s in my living room at – “

“5:30 am,” Natasha supplied.

“-an ungodly hour of the morning,” Tony finished.  “Well, this can only be good news.  I’ll get dressed.”

“Not on my account,” she said with a crooked grin, and that was when Tony realized that he’d answered the door naked. 

Ten minutes and two painkillers later, Tony followed the ambrosial smell of coffee down to where Maria, Steve, and Natasha were waiting.  Maria opened her mouth to speak and Tony held up a hand. “Coffee first.  I will get shot for SHIELD, but I will not do it without coffee.”  He returned to the tense circle after a moment, eyes half shut and hands curled around a steaming cup. “Ok go.”

“Fury’s alive, and he wants to talk to you.”

Tony almost stood back up and walked back to his bedroom.  Natasha must have seen it in his face because she put a hand on his arm.  “Please, Tony,” she said in a low voice. “If Fury had to fake his death, then this must be really serious.”

“ _Now_ it’s really serious? Not when someone, probably from SHIELD, ordered someone to blow up my plane with us on it? And then tried to kill us again in Jersey? Christ.”  Tony put his cup down to scrub his hands over his face.  Steve still hadn’t looked up from where he was staring at his hands.   He hadn’t so much as blinked an eye at Maria’s announcement; but then, knowledge that Fury was alive would pale against the news that his best friend from 70 years ago was alive. Tony would bet his entire fortune that the man hadn’t slept a wink all night.  “Fine.  Let me get a suit and let’s do this.  Maybe Nick can shed some light into what the fuck is going on here.”

 

Maria drove them to West Virginia, past towns that hadn’t been booming since the New Deal and pulled up under some trees next to an abandoned, half-built dam. Maria led them through dark, dripping hallways until they came to a room that had been strung up with industrial lighting and filled with medical equipment.  In the center, holding court like a critically injured king, was Fury.

“So the whole thing with cutting you open, your heart stopping, that was all just…theater?”  Natasha gave a ghost of a smile when she saw him.  “And I thought Steve was the dramatic one.”

“The attempt on his life had to look successful,” Maria said coolly, typing something on her phone.

“Oh, believe me, it was definitely touch and go there for a while.  But without knowing who to trust, I had to get off the map as thoroughly as possible,” Fury said, as close to an apology as he got.  After a moment Natasha gave a small nod and looked away.  “Maria tells me that you all have had an interesting few days.  Want to fill me in?”  

The three of them glanced at each other until Steve spoke, giving the mission report like a good soldier.  Throughout it all Fury listened without comment while Maria took notes and occasionally took out her phone to send a message.

“Well, shit,” Fury said when Steve finished.  “This is much worse than I thought.”

“That’s always good to hear from someone who barely survived an assassination attempt,” Tony muttered. He unfolded a metal chair that had been leaning against a wall and made himself comfortable.  The sling for his arm was making his shoulder tired.

“Alright Fury, you’ve got us all here now.  Mind telling us what’s going on?” 

 “Here’s what I know.  Whatever is on that drive has something to do with a highly classified, need-to-know project called Project Insight.  We are building three next-generation helicarriers linked to targeting satellites.  Thanks to you, Stark, once they are in the air they will never need to come down.  Between the satellites that can identify targets from space and the long-range precision guns that can fire a thousand rounds a minute, we have designed a system that is meant to eliminate a lot of threats before they happen.”

During Fury’s speech, Natasha had gone pale, but Steve’s face was growing darker and darker.  Tony scowled as he remembered this particular commission; Fury had come to him with the worry that the engines and turbines were still vulnerable to the type of attack that almost brought down the last one. “I thought the punishment was supposed to come after the crime,” Steve said, crossing his arms over his chest.   

“We almost nuked our biggest city to stop the last army that tried to invade Earth.  What happens next time? What happens if Earth’s mightiest heroes are overrun?” The effect of Fury’s glare was in no way diminished by the fact he was half-reclined in a hospital bed.  “It is my job to make sure we were prepared.”

 “Bullshit!” Tony stood up and paced angrily. “This is why you came to me to help you redesign the helicarriers? To make them into – into unstoppable killing machines?” He turned back to Fury. “You know how I feel about that, you son of a bitch!”

“Enough, Tony,” Natasha said quietly. “Everyone here is angry to find out they’ve been played by Hydra.”

“No. No. You all,” he said, pointing to everyone else. “Got played by Hydra. _I_ got played – betrayed – by _him.”_ When Fury just glared back at him Tony considered sabotaging his morphine drip.

“I understand why you are angry, believe me,” Steve said.  “But for right now, you have to walk it off, because we’ve got a bigger problem.  Hydra is clearly trying to get their hands on these helicarriers.”  He turned to Fury.  “So what is on this drive?”

“I don’t know.  I just know it’s somehow related to Project Insight, and it’s the reason why someone tried to kill me.” 

“Us. All of us,” Tony reminded him, pointing to his sling. “You’re not the only one who got shot here.”

Steve gave him a warning look so Tony scowled and sat back down, still fuming. “Well someone has to know, Nick.  What-”

“Sitwell,” Natasha said suddenly. “He was the only SHIELD agent on the Lemurian Star. There’s no way he’s not involved.”

“Ok, we can start there,” Steve said, nodding thoughtfully.  “But he can't be the only one. What about Alexander Pierce?”

“You think Pierce is involved? Why?”  Fury gestured Maria over, who had just been watching everything, and said something to her. She nodded and stepped out of the room.

“Rumlow and his goons ambushed me as I left his office.  Seems a little too coincidental.”

Natasha sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Well, it’s not like we can make an appointment and ask him if he’s a part of a secret Nazi organization.  I don’t know if you’ve watched the news lately, but we’re wanted fugitives right now.”

“Well, you only have two real options,” Tony said, speaking somewhat from experience.  Stark Industries dealt with corporate espionage on a daily basis, in addition to regular espionage because of all of the military consulting projects.  One of many things that was mostly Pepper’s problem now, thank goodness.  “One, you blow the lid off of SHIELD and Hydra both – put all of SHIELD’s classified information online and see which cockroaches go scuttling away from the light.”

Steve frowned.  “Since keeping secrets is how Hydra grew under SHIELD’s nose in the first place, I think –“

“Or option two, Tony?” Fury interrupted.  It looked like that option was making him a little queasy.

“Option two, is we find every Hydra agent inside SHIELD and get rid of them quietly.”

Natasha was shaking her head before he even finished talking.  “There’s no way we can do that.  The amount of time it would take to re-examine every SHIELD employee – who had to have background checks before they got into SHIELD in the first place – would take months. Maybe years.  We don’t have time for that.”

“What if we had a mind reader?”

She stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Ok, sure, Tony, if we had a _psychic_ the process would certainly go a lot faster.”

“True.  If only there was someone we knew that was good at getting into peoples’ heads…” Tony trailed off musingly, scratching his chin like he was deep in thought, then looked surprised when he saw that everyone was staring at him.  “What? Who are _you_ thinking of?”

Fury looked like he was going to spit nails.  “You’ve finally lost your mind, Tony.”

“Yeah? So between Hydra and Loki, you’re picking Hydra?” Tony shook his head.  “I feel like Loki is going to take back all of the nice things he said about you.”

“You really think that Loki is going to agree to help us? Help SHIELD?”

“Sure,” Tony lied.  “I mean, I’m sure he’ll have some conditions, but what option do you have, really? I also have a small request.  Just a little one. Tiny, really.”

“What’s that?”

“Everything SHIELD has or can get on my parents’ deaths.  If I think you’re withholding anything I’ll hack in and get it myself.  Deal?”

“Fine.  Now show me that you can bring Loki to the table.”

“Fine.” Tony pulled out his phone and started walking away, ignoring the whispered conversation that turned into shouts as soon as he left the room.  He retraced his steps all the way to the entrance and into the woods beyond before he hit dial.

“Hey, Loki.  Can I have a minute?”

Unnervingly, Loki just listened to him in complete silence while Tony explained the whole situation, starting with what Steve had told them about Hydra’s activities during World War II up to yesterday’s assassination attempts.  “So we need your help to figure out who is Hydra and who’s not before they destroy the world or something.”

There was a long, considering silence. “ _Or,_ ” Loki said eventually, “I can take over this impressively ambitious organization and rule Earth instead.”

Tony stared at his phone in disbelief for a moment, then shook his head. “First of all, you complain all the time about ruling Asgard and how boring it is.  Second, whenever you watch the news you spend the whole time commenting about how terrible humans are.  Why would you do that to yourself?”

“True,” Loki said, almost regretfully. “Very well.  I will assist SHIELD in this matter.  In return, I want two things.”

By the time he hung up and got back to the room where Fury was holed up like a spider in its lair, everyone in the room had shouted themselves to a stalemate and were all just standing around staring at each other angrily.  “So I asked and he said he would help,” Tony said, ignoring the tension in the room.  Steve in particular looked thunderous.  “But he did have a request. Requirement, really.”

“What?”

“A statue.”  The disbelieving stares were everything Loki could have wanted. 

“A…statue,” Fury repeated.

“Yeah.  Right next to Cap’s.  He even has an inscription.”  Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket to read what Loki had made him write down, as if he needed help remembering this gem. “He wants it to say, ‘You Will Never Know How Many Times I Saved Your Puny Mortal Lives.’”

Since he already had his phone out, it was easy to get a video of the apoplectic look on Fury’s face.   Steve looked pained and Natasha rolled her eyes. 

“Is that all he wants? Not a pardon, or-?” Fury stopped, trying to think of what else he could even offer right now.

“That’s all he wants from _you_.  And not to put too fine a point on it, I don’t think he could care less about a pardon.”

“What do you mean, wants from us? What does he want from you?” Natasha whispered while Fury and Steve argued.

Tony raised an eyebrow at her.  “Does it matter? I said I could bring him to the table, and I did.”

“You shouldn’t compromise yourself for this.”

He laughed. “I don’t know what you’re imagining, but it’s not like that.  It’s a commission.  All above board. I didn't sell my soul to the devil.”

“Fine. We’ll do it,” Fury said, speaking loudly over Steve’s objections.

“I’ll let him know and you can work out the details,” Tony said cheerfully.

“You are enjoying this way too much, Tony.  Is this your revenge for the helicarriers?”

The cheerfulness dropped from Tony’s face like the mask that it was. “Fury.  When I have decided to have my revenge for being tricked into working on your weapons of mass destruction, you’ll know it.”

There was a moment of tense silence before Maria spoke. “Director Fury said that Project Insight will be coming online before the end of the year.  So we only have a few months to figure out what, exactly, Hydra plans to do with Project Insight and find every single Hydra operative in SHIELD and the rest of the US government without anyone noticing.”

“You say that like it’s going to be hard.”


	4. Short Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally gets some R&R.

It wasn’t until Maria sketched out the organization of SHIELD that Tony truly realized the enormity of the project.  He had only thought about the Triskelion, which was an enormous building to be sure, but it still seemed manageable.  Finite.  But then Fury pointed out that there were STRIKE teams in every major city, along with mobile STRIKE teams, and local liaisons that had been trained by SHIELD in order to be first responders – reserve STRIKE teams, if you will.  Each team has support staff, about 3-5 per six person team – intel, forensics, HR, logistics, etc.   The Triskelion itself was even more staff on top of that.

“And we can’t even assume that Hydra is just in SHIELD.  They probably have their fingers in every part of the US government. Defense, State, hell maybe even Education,” Natasha pointed out, always the one to look for the silver lining. “And that’s just the US.”

Tony’s head hit the desk. “Loki’s going to kill me,” he muttered under his breath.

“On the bright side, for now we just need to disrupt their operations long enough to figure out and then interfere with whatever they have planned for Project Insight.”

“Is that all? Oh, goody.”  After a moment he lifted his head.  “Ok, so where do we start?”

“The STRIKE teams,” Natalie said immediately.  “We identify, isolate, and eventually eliminate all of the Hydra elements from the assault teams first.  How close does Loki have to be to do his thing?”

“Uh…”  Tony tried to remember anything Loki had said about this but drew a blank. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

“Well we’re not going to get very far planning this without him,” Maria said, straightening. “Do you know when he will be available for consultation?” she asked.  Tony squinted at her, trying to figure out if she was being serious or if that was the driest sarcasm he’d ever heard, but her poker face was solid.

“I think he’ll be free tomorrow.  Hydra isn’t going to destroy the world in one day, right?” Tony looked down at the hastily drawn SHIELD org chart and thought of all the ways he would use SHIELD resources if he was trying to throw the world into chaos and groaned again.  “Christ we are so fucked.”

Natasha put a hand on his shoulder.  “Hydra is probably not going to make a move in the next 24 hours.  They already tipped their hand too much yesterday, and they didn’t get to where they are now by taking a lot of risks.  With something as big as Project Insight in the balance, they are probably going to sit tight and try to figure out what we know and what we’re going to do next.”

“Let’s hope so.” He glanced up to Steve and Natasha. “What  _are_ you guys going to do next?"

“I’m going to get off the grid, and see what I can dig up on Hydra, starting with Jasper Sitwell,” Natasha said.  “I have a few safe houses SHIELD doesn’t know about.”

“And I’m going try to find Bucky,” Steve said grimly.  When everyone stared at him in disbelief, his jaw tightened and he crossed his arms over his chest.  “What?”

“You mean legendary Hydra assassin Bucky? Didn’t know his own name, much less yours, Bucky? Tried to kill four out of the five people in this room, Bucky?”

“What’s your point, Tony?”

“My point is that if you have a death wish there are easier ways to die, even for a super soldier.  What’s your plan, anyway? Walk around shouting his name?  You’re going to draw a big target on your back with a ‘come and get me, big boy’ sign on top and Hydra is going to be waiting for you!”  Tony’s voice rose until he was shouting.

Steve leaned over the desk, hands gripping it so tightly that the wood creaked in protest.  “Let me say this more clearly.  _I am going to find Bucky._   No matter what Hydra throws at me.”

Natasha rubbed her temples.  “Ok, new plan.  I’m going to try to keep Steve from getting killed.”

“Excuse me _,_ ” Fury bit off, interrupting.  “But who. _The hell._ Is Bucky?”

 

Tony threw in the towel halfway through that argument, so done with SHIELD-related drama for one day that it could probably be seen from space.  Given the way everyone was arguing when he walked out, he figured that he’d be back home before anyone noticed that he'd even left.

Glancing at the clock as he stepped out of his suit, he took one more pain killer on the way to his bedroom and then collapsed diagonally on the bed, praying that the headache would soon go the same way as the ebbing ache in his arm.  Either the prayer or the painkiller worked, because the next thing he knew was the sound of someone opening the door and closing it quietly. This time when he managed to drag his eyes open, he was treated to the sight of Loki undressing on the other side of the room. He watched appreciatively as Loki shed the layers of formal wear, eventually revealing his broad shoulders, smoothly muscled back, and narrow hips.  Once free of his clothes Loki stretched, all long, lean lines and pale skin, and Tony made a sound of appreciation.

“Hey handsome, welcome home,” he croaked, then cleared his throat and awkwardly pushed himself into a sitting position.  His arm had gotten stiff during his sleep but thankfully wasn’t hurting. Once he was sitting up he could hear that Loki had already started the shower, and suddenly a hot shower sounded like heaven. He stood and started gingerly peeling off his own clothes. “Want some company?”

“Of course.”  Tony followed Loki to the truly sybaritic shower that took up the whole far wall of the bathroom.  Two shower heads, a cedar bench for relaxing and…other activities, heated tile floor, glass walls, and a towel warmer made it pretty much the best room in the tower. He turned on the second shower head and groaned as the hot water hit his aching muscles, resting his head against the cool tile wall.

He felt gentle fingers trace the graze on his back and then turn him to examine his arm. “It appears to be healing well,” Loki observed, carefully touching the pink, new flesh around the edges of the wound.

“Yeah,” Tony craned his neck around to look at the exit wound, which was a bit uglier.  “R&D has this injectable stem cell stuff that’s supposed to accelerate healing for us non-gods and less than super soldiers.”

“Tell me again about the man who did this.” Loki tilted his head back into the spray and raked his hands through his hair.

“He had a metal arm that was pretty much the coolest thing I’ve seen outside my own laboratory, for one thing.  Also, apparently he’s the spitting image of Steve’s childhood sweetheart or best friend or something.”  Tony grabbed a bar of soap and worked up some lather before handing it to Loki. “Steve thinks he was captured during the war, brainwashed, and then has been killing people over the past 70 years.” 

“I see. Are you telling me this because you think that this should make me sympathetic to his plight?”

“Sure.  You guys could start a club.  And I’ll make Steve a pamphlet – ‘So You Are Inappropriately Attracted to a Supervillain’.”  As Tony rinsed off the soap he sniffed his arm.  He smelled a little bit like Loki.  He smiled and swore to die before ever admitting how much he liked it.

Behind him, oblivious, Loki snorted disdainfully.  “Whoever this man is, he hardly sounds like a supervillain.”

Tony turned around to grab the shampoo. “Natasha says he’s assassinated at least two dozen people in the last fifty years.” Loki raised an eyebrow.  Tony had to admit, when phrased like that it hardly sounded that impressive.  “Ok, but ‘inappropriately attracted to a superhenchman’ doesn’t have the same panache.” Tony stared down at the bottle in his hand and realized there was no way he was going to be able to lift his arm to wash his hair.  “Could I have a hand with this?”

Loki took the bottle without question.  Tony _may_ have moaned a little when he started massaging his scalp.  “Speaking of inappropriate attraction to a supervillain.” He leaned back to rinse the shampoo out and looked at Loki expectantly.

“Go on,” Loki said with a slowly growing smile.

“I got shot yesterday. And someone blew up my plane. Then today was _very_ stressful.”

“Yes…”

"So you should be extra nice to me.” 

“Oh?” Loki slid his hands up Tony’s chest and slowly pushed him backwards until he hit the cool tiles of the shower wall, still smiling dangerously. “And what would that look like, exactly? Me, being… _nice?_ ”

“I don’t know.” Tony tilted his head back to look Loki in the eye and tried to look pitiful. The hotly amused look in Loki’s eyes made it difficult to keep a straight face.  “For one thing, you’d have to do all the work.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Hey!”  But Loki put a finger over his lips.

“So when we’re done here, I should carry you into the bedroom.” Loki’s voice lowered to a deep rumble, making Tony shiver despite the heat of the water.  God he loved Loki’s sex voice.

“Yeah, you should.” He trailed his fingers up Loki’s sides.

“Lay you down on the bed.”

“Oh, yeah.” He closed his eyes as Loki traced a finger over his lips, then traced the same path with his tongue.

“And cover you with a blanket, that you might get some healing sleep.”

Tony’s eyes flew open. “What? Noo-”

Loki chuckled and captured his protest with his mouth as he reached to turn off the shower.  “Come, let us retire.  I will be kind until you are begging for cruelty.”

 

A couple of hours later Tony was sprawled across the bed in a fucked out doze, Loki reading something next to him, when Natasha called.  Tony squinted at the phone for a moment, debating answering it, before he gave in and picked up. “Hey,” he grunted, eyes closed.

“Hey, Tony.  Steve and I are here at Sitwell’s apartment.”

“You don’t sound like you have good news.”

“Nope.  Hydra got here first.”

“Sitwell’s a dead end, then.”

"And how,” Nat said with her peculiar brand of dark humor. Tony heard Steve say something disapproving in the background.

“Was it…” Tony didn’t know what to call him.  Right now he definitely wasn’t Steve’s Bucky, that’s for sure.  And he refused to call him the Winter Soldier, that was entirely too melodramatic. “You know who?”

“Judging from how Sitwell was beaten to death with a large chunk of his own marble countertop, I think that’s safe to say.”

“Subtle.  So Pierce is our only lead then.”

“Looks like. I think that’s on you, so go get him, tiger.” 

 “When did we decide I had to get to Pierce? How am I supposed to do that?”

“You’re rich, he’s a politician, and it’s an election year. What do you think?”

Tony groaned and buried his face in the pillow. “Fuck me,” he said, his voice muffled.  “Fundraisers. Charity balls. Pay per plate dinners.  I should have just let them kill me.”

“Have fun, Tony.  We’ll be in touch.”

Tony hung up and dropped his phone on the carpet, face still in his pillow.  “Argh,” he groaned again, this time for dramatic effect. He heard Loki make an amused noise and felt him trail fingertips absently over his arm. Tony rolled over, careful not to jostle his arm too much, and took a moment to study Loki, who had a slight line between his brows as he concentrated on his reading, his features looking strangely forbidding when backlit by the bedside lamp.

“What are you reading?” Tony asked, nudging him slightly with a toe.  Without looking up, Loki moved the book so that Tony could see the spine and cover.  It wasn’t written in any language Tony recognized.  “Sounds fascinating. Hey, so Fury wants to meet with you tomorrow.  I forgot to mention it earlier.”

“Very well.”

“In some non-world threatening news, Jane and I are almost ready for another test of the Bifrost.  Well, hopefully non-world threatening.  The last time we had to shut it down early because it was overheating and I didn’t want to rip a hole in spacetime in the middle of New Mexico.” Tony made an exploding noise complete with hand gestures. “Then it occurred to me that the Bifrost on Asgard is on the edge of space, not in the middle of a desert, so.  I improved the cooling system.”

“Congratulations, Stark.  I look forward to seeing your progress.”

“Me too.”  Tony scooted closer to hook a leg over Loki's.  "Want to tell me about what you were doing in Asgard?"

Loki marked his page and set his book down on his lap.  "You wish to hear about the internal politics of Nidavellir?"

He shrugged as best he could laying down.  "Sure, but mostly I want to hear you talk.  As long as you don't get mad if I fall asleep during."

The room darkened as Loki set his book aside, and then the walls and ceiling vanished as they were replaced by an illusion of deep space, thick with stars and slowly spinning galaxies. Nine glowing orbs appeared, each a slightly different color.  Tony had enough time to recognize the blue-green marble that was Earth before the illusion zoomed in on a planet rough with mountains, rusty red and kind of bleak. "This is Nidavellir," Loki started. "Home of the dwarves..."


	5. Counterstrike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is not excited about the plan to locate Hydra agents within SHIELD. Tony tries to make it up to him with gratuitous smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that Chapter 4.5 in this series takes place before this chapter. It's not 100% required to understand everything else in this fic, but it would help.

The next morning, after lingering over breakfast and coffee with Stark, JARVIS provided the coordinates to Fury’s hideaway.  It was the work of moments to walk the dark paths and emerge in a damp, claustrophobic, musty smelling concrete bunker.  Loki’s lips twisted in distaste before he smoothed them out and approached the figure in the bed in the center of the room.  “Fury.”

To his credit, Fury didn’t react when Loki emerged from the shadows. “Loki,” he answered flatly. After a moment of consideration, Fury gestured to a chair that had been pulled up beside his sickbed.  Loki raised an eyebrow at the rickety folding chair and summoned an elaborately carved wooden chair from his room in Asgard with a small gesture. 

“I’m surprised that you wanted to meet with me alone,” he commented mildly as he sat.

“I suppose I’ve grown fatalistic in my own age.  If you wanted to kill me, it’d probably already be done by now.”  Fury pressed a button and the bed whirred, moving so he sat up a little straighter.  He gestured around him as one of the many machines arrayed next to him beeped.  “It’s not as if I’m much of a challenge these days.”

“True.”

“I asked you to come here because I got the impression from Mr. Stark that you see your assistance with this Hydra matter as a favor that you are doing for SHIELD.  I think with more information about Hydra you will see where your interests lie as well.”

Loki leaned back in his chair, suddenly intrigued.  “Go on.”

“I don’t know what Mr. Stark has already told you, so I will start at the beginning.  Hydra was the first to discover the Tesseract, and they spent many years discovering how to weaponize its energy. The weapon that gave you a spot of trouble on the helicarrier was partially based on their design.”  Loki scowled at the unpleasant reminder.  Fury continued, raising a hand to start counting off the points he was about to make. “And since we have to assume that what SHIELD knows, Hydra knows, that means Hydra knows that there are weapons that can hurt you, and beings like you.  We also have to assume that they probably have some in their possession.”  Loki’s frown deepened.  It was not difficult to see where Fury was going with this.  “Hydra’s ideology is rooted in extreme racism and xenophobia. Huge portions of the human population are not considered worthy to be a part of the new world order they are attempting to create.  How do you think they feel about people who aren’t even human?”

“But now  _I_ have the Tesseract,” Loki reminded him. "As well as the staff."

“Sure, sure,” Fury allowed.  “But those aren’t the only artifacts of their kind on Earth, are they?  What are they called? Infinity Gems? Ridiculous name, if you ask me.” 

Loki straightened in surprise. “Infinity Stones,” he corrected.  “How did you-”

Fury gave him a sardonic look.  “For the past few years, SHIELD has followed up on every lead we find, no matter how ridiculous it may seem.  So when we get reports of a secret society of wizards, we get the Harry Potter jokes out of our system and we investigate wizards.”

“Sorcerers, if you please,” Loki said absently, deep in thought. Machines beeped in the silence. He pulled his phone out of the interior pocket of his suit coat and sent Strange a text:  _We need to talk._  Fury watched him with interest, sharp eye missing nothing.   “So you believe that if Hydra is successful, Thor and I will become targets.”

“If not before.  You, Thor, Dr. Banner, Mr. Stark, Dr. Strange, among others – and there are others, many of them – you are all potential threats to their power.  This isn’t just SHIELD’s problem, it’s your problem, too.”

“You’ve made your point.”  Loki stood and his chair vanished.  “I will give this matter my full attention.”

“Thank you,” Fury said with an entertaining blend of sarcasm and sincerity.  “I believe Ms. Hill will be the best person to plan logistics with, she has the acting head of SHIELD since my untimely demise.”  He pressed a hidden button and a bell rang. A tall, formidable woman came through a door hidden by a cheap plastic curtain, glancing at Fury, who gave her a small nod.

Loki gave Fury a slight bow and followed her through the door.

***

“Hey, Loki,” Stark said absently as Loki reappeared a while later, scowling down at where he was laying on the couch working on his tablet.

“I can’t believe I have agreed to something so far beneath my dignity.  I believe you should owe me more than just a new Destroyer for this.” Hill’s plan involved meetings.  _Meetings_. Loki scowled. He was to cull Hydra agents from SHIELD as they unsuspectingly sat through meetings. As if he didn’t get enough of those on Asgard.  As a king, he could see the cleverness in the plan- it was devious and sneaky, which was normally his favorite method of doing business, but in truth he’d accepted this task with the hopes that it would involve some amount of entertaining mayhem.  Instead there was to be  _meetings_. Loki wanted to rub his temples against the sudden onslaught of a headache.

“I’m not going to enjoy it either,” Stark pointed out as he rolled over and sat up.  “I  _hate_  election years.  But, speaking of your commission, I’ve started sketching up the design.  Take a look.”  He pushed a button and set the tablet on the coffee table. A hologram of a robot sprang up, looking aesthetically like a combination between an oversized Iron Man suit and the original Destroyer. Loki had just picked up the tablet to examine the hologram when he heard a familiar buzzing as a sparking gold portal opened in the living room.

“You said we needed to talk?” Strange said, leaning through the portal.  “Hello, Tony,” he said with a wave, which Stark returned before laying back down on the couch.

Loki stepped through the portal to join him in his study and took his usual seat, picking up a small stack of books that was in his way. “Indeed.  It has just come to my attention that your organization has been infiltrated,” Loki said, tilting his head to look at the titles of the books Strange was reading. Interplanar magic theory seemed to be the theme.  He set them off to the side.

“Infiltrated? By whom?”

Strange’s look of surprise would have been amusing, if the scenario described by Fury hadn’t been so dire. Loki throttled down his ire at the thought of anyone in Hydra, or even SHIELD for that matter, getting their hands on the time gem.  Leaving it in the hands of these well-meaning amateurs was difficult enough.  “I would say that SHIELD has at least one informant in your ranks, if not more.”  

“SHIELD?” Strange sat forward in his chair, astonished. “Like-”

“Yes, as in Captain America, as in this country’s overenthusiastic security apparatus, SHIELD.”

“ _Why?”_

“Would you rather have been dismissed as frauds or lunatics?” Strange huffed indignantly.  “But there’s more.”

“Fantastic.  Let’s hear it.”

“SHIELD itself has been compromised.  What do you know of an organization that calls itself Hydra?” At Strange’s slow head shake Loki quickly outlined what he’d learned.

When he was done, Strange leaned his chair on its back legs for a moment before answering. “Very well. I will try to find out who's been talking to SHIELD and increase security around the Eye. Clearly we need to update our vetting procedures,” he muttered darkly. 

“It may not be someone new,” Loki pointed out.  “Perhaps you should start with the individual who first brought my name to your attention.”

Strange frowned. “But that was months ago-” His eyes grew wide at the dawning realization and the front chair legs landed back on the carpet with a thump. “Ooooh, I see.”

“Quite.  An admirable attempt to set two potential threats against each other, wouldn’t you say?”

Strange snorted. “They can’t be happy at how that turned out.”

“No, I imagine not.  So be wary.  In the next few months Stark and I will be attempting to dismantle this organization and they will likely retaliate.”

“I will.  Let me know if you need any help.”

Loki stood.  “Thank you.” He bowed slightly.  Strange watched him expectantly, and after a moment look of pleased surprise came over Loki’s face.

“You have a new shield.”

“Yep.” Strange leaned back in his chair again and steepled his fingers, clearly pretty happy with himself. “I figured out how you kept me from opening a portal into Tony’s tower and put a similar spell around the Sanctuary.  Now only a short list of people I gave permissions to can teleport in and out.”

“Well done,” Loki said sincerely.  Over the past few months Strange had proven himself to be a gifted and ambitious student, which had certainly made it easier to entrust him with the time gem.

“Thanks. Soon they will be around all of the Sanctuaries and Kamar-Taj, so that will be one more layer of security for the Eye.” 

There was another short pause, and Loki fought to hide his amusement at the glee in Strange’s eyes. “Am I to understand that I’m not on that short list?”

Strange smiled beatifically and came around the desk to open the door. “Exercise is good for you.”

***

The next day, an hour into one of Hill’s meetings, Loki was meditating out of sheer boredom when felt his phone vibrate in the pocket of his suit coat.   _How much longer?_   Stark texted, and attached a picture of himself lying in bed, hand on his cock.  Heat crawled down Loki’s spine and he shifted in his seat.

_I thought when I left I told you not to touch yourself._

Stark's answer was immediate.  _I haven’t come yet_. But he was close, judging from the way his cock was already drooling precome in that photo.

_That’s not what I said._

_Then I guess I’ve been disobedient. What are you going to do about it?_  Loki sucked in a surprised breath, hand tightening on his phone until the metal creaked in warning.

“Is there a problem?” Maria whispered. 

Loki started, and then cleared his throat as he put his phone away. “Other matters have arisen that I need to deal with. The presenter and the three people sitting closest to the windows are all Hydra agents. I will be in touch.”

When Loki appeared at the foot of the bed Stark was exactly where he’d been when he’d taken the photo, but instead of his hands being on his cock one hand was fisted in the sheets while the other was slowly working a dildo in and out of his hole.  He must have been at it for a while, because there was a light sheen of sweat across his body and his thighs were tensing with the struggle to keep his hips still.

“Look, I’m not touching,” Stark slurred.  Loki swayed a little as the hot burn of arousal shot through him.  He locked eyes with Stark as he shrugged off the suit coat and kicked out of his shoes.

“You are in no less trouble for that, Stark,” he said, voice low and rough. He circled Stark’s ankles with his hands and pulled him down to the edge of the bed, running his hands up his legs and spreading his thighs to get a better view.

“Good. Lose the clothes and get up here already, I’ve been waiting for ages.”

“Hmm,” Loki complied, feeling the heat of Stark’s eyes like fire on his skin as he stripped.  He climbed on the bed and captured both of Stark’s arms to press them to the mattress. “May I?” he murmured, lips brushing Stark’s throat.  Stark nodded, then moaned when he tugged a little and realized that his arms were bound in place by Loki’s will.  Loki kissed his way down his body, taste of salt on his lips, before pushing up to kneel and stroke his cock lightly as he surveyed Stark below him, skin flushed and chest heaving.

“Are you just here to look?” Stark panted, lifting his legs to try to wrap them around Loki’s waist and pull him closer.

“None of that, Stark,” Loki said, pinning his thigh to the bed, other hand never losing its slow rhythm. “You are here for my pleasure now.”  He adjusted his stance so that his knee was pressed against the toy, smiling darkly as Stark’s back arched off the bed with a bitten off “ _fuck.”_   His hand sped up as Stark watched him, licking his lips as if he wanted a taste.  Stark started rocking his hips, fucking himself on the dildo using the pressure of Loki’s knee, throwing his head back in frustration when it wasn’t enough.

“Loki, if you don’t get your cock in me  _right now-_ ”

“Demands, Stark?” But he didn’t feel like denying himself any longer, so he drew the toy out and set it aside before lining himself up and sinking in slowly.  Loki was unable to suppress his own moan as he slid in, so sweet and easy, all the way to the hilt.  He let himself savor the sensation before he started to move, a slow, steady rhythm that he knew would drive Stark crazy. He braced himself over Stark with one arm so the other could delve into his hair and hold him still for a plundering kiss.  Stark's legs came up again, trying to urge Loki to a faster rhythm as he made appealingly eager noises, body straining towards release.  "Today is the day that I finally make you regret your smart mouth, Stark."

"Yeah?" Stark said breathlessly.

 Loki smiled, feeling the urgency in Stark's body that he was fighting to keep out of his voice. "As I said, you are here for my pleasure now, not yours.  You may finish when I say so and not before."

"You know I'm no good at following orders." Loki slid almost all the way out and paused, thrusting shallowly so that the head of his cock caught on the rim of Stark's hole, breath coming faster as he watched.  Finally Stark groaned and let his head fall back onto the bed, arms straining against Loki's binding spell. "Okay, okay," he panted after a few minutes. "Theoretically, what would I have to do to earn an orgasm?"

"Apologize," Loki said with another long, smooth slide all the way in, "and beg." He stayed there, ignoring the way Stark was writing in frustration, and set about relearning Stark's body with lips and hands, teasing his nipples and stroking down his trembling sides.  He breathed hotly against Stark's neck and smiled at his full body shiver. He resumed his steady rhythm and watched with interest as Stark unraveled beneath him, his chest ruddy and damp with sweat, neglected cock leaking and adding to the mess on Stark's stomach.  The needy noises Stark was making, the bitten off grunts and strangled whimpers made Loki ache to thrust harder and faster but instead he forced himself to slow down, determined that Stark should break first.

" _Fuck_ , please, Loki, please just - I need -"

"I know what you need, Stark," Loki rasped, and hooked an arm behind Stark's knee to bend him almost in half.  Stark threw his head back with a choked off cry at the change in angle and Loki set his teeth into the muscle between Stark's neck and shoulder, all but growling as pleasure ran white and hot in his veins. "Apologize and you can have it."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Stark all but sobbed. "I won't-"

Before Stark made a promise he couldn't keep, Loki changed the angle of his thrusts slightly, finding Tony's prostate with a practiced accuracy and dragging his cock over it mercilessly.  Loki had meant to drag this out longer but it was getting harder and harder to hold off his own pleasure.  His thrusts became rougher. "You may come now," he said and released his hold on Stark's hands.  Stark only needed two strokes on his cock and he was coming silently, all of the air punched out of his lungs, body curling into Loki's from the force of it.  Feeling Stark's body tighten around his cock was all Loki needed and he was following him over the edge, breath hitching as Stark held him close.

"Well, I've certainly learned a lesson from all of this," Stark said after a moment, body still quaking with aftershocks.  He raked Loki's hair back from his face, legs still locked around his waist, and pulled him down for a kiss.

Loki huffed a laugh as he carefully withdrew.  "And lo, man apologizes only to sin again," he murmured, pressing his lips against Stark's irrepressible smile.  Untangling himself, he collapsed next to him, fingers tracing an idle path along stark's jaw and down his neck before settling lightly on the arc reactor.  He studied its blue-white light, marveling anew at the hum of electricity and magic at his fingertips, like a captured star. He ran his fingers along the seem where cool glass and metal met flesh, reading the story of Stark's pain in the scars.  He was so deep in thought that he didn't register that Stark had spoken until a hand came up to cover his own.

"Hmm?" Loki looked up to see Stark looking at him curiously.

"I said, what are you thinking about?"

_The worlds that would burn if you were lost to me._  "I feel the need to shower and cleanse myself of the stench of bureaucratic evil," he said instead. "Join me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, next up, a little less talk and a lot more action.


	6. Knights White and Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra kidnaps Tony and Loki has zero chill about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I'm doing it, I'm modifying the format of this work halfway through. When it's completely done I'll go back and fix it from the beginning, but I've finally found out how to indent paragraphs reliably and that's been bothering me since Blood and Iron.

            Tony lied to Fury.

            As soon as he mentioned his parents’ death, he’d decided that no matter what Fury said or sent he was going to hack SHIELD, mostly because Hydra or no Hydra, Fury was an untrustworthy bastard. 

            He didn’t actually set JARVIS on it, though, until a few days later, when it became obvious that raw computing power wasn’t going to crack the biometric security on Steve’s thumb drive.  He deprioritized that and set JARVIS against SHIELD’s firewall; since SHIELD’s IT security was a contract that Stark Industries lost, Tony was in their mainframe by dinner. Almost more difficult was finding an appropriate search platform that could dig through the archived reports back to 1991 because apparently SHIELD was running some bullshit Windows 95 OS, which was embarrassing.

            So when a twenty gigabyte thumb drive arrived at the tower less than a week after Loki met with Fury, Tony found on it an impressively thorough copy of everything he’d already found for himself days ago.  All in all, the file on his parents’ death contained hundreds of interviews, interrogations, photos of the crime scene, scanned news articles, background reports on anyone who lived in a ten mile radius to the crash site, and forensic reports.  There were documents from the local police department – a two man operation, Tony remembered, that had quickly found themselves out of their depth – the FBI, SHIELD, and the private investigator that the insurance company had hired.  Tony also recognized the files from the private investigator he himself had hired when the official investigation had declared their deaths an accident. 

            It was an enormous amount of information.  But it also was all information that he’d seen before, twenty years ago, information that for all appearances conclusively proved that Howard and Maria Stark's death was an accident, that a blown tire sent their vehicle straight into a tree while driving on a back country.  Autopsy findings: Howard died on impact, Maria died later of internal injuries.

            Tony’d had a lot of nightmares about that, about his mother crying in the dark, dying slowly as she bled out on the inside.  

            He was so lost in thought that the touch of Loki’s hand against his back made him jump and knock his coffee off his desk. Loki caught it and set it on a work table beside him, watching him with sympathy as Tony rubbed his eyes.  He looked at the clock on his computer and realized that he’d been staring at the screen, not really seeing anything, for almost thirty minutes. He spun around in his chair and rested his head on Loki’s chest with a sigh.

            “Good day?” he asked the floor.

            Loki made an ambivalent noise. “Hill is pleased with our progress.  Apparently we are almost finished with SHIELD.”

            “Ugh, that reminds me.  Pepper has scheduled our first fundraiser for tomorrow night and apparently I need a new suit.” Tony sat up and pulled out his phone to make an appointment for his tailor. 

            Loki slid his hand up Tony’s back to his neck, massaging the muscles there. “And you? How are you faring?”

            Tony let his chin fall to his chest, trying to relax under Loki’s hands. “Frustrated.”

            “Go on.”

            “Not sure how to investigate a possible murder – assuming that Nazi bastard wasn’t just trying to wind me up – from twenty years ago when every piece of evidence I have might be a complete fabrication.”

            Loki must have heard something of the hopelessness he felt in his voice because he stepped closer and pulled Tony in tight. Tony closed his eyes and slid his hands under Loki’s shirt to feel muscle and warm skin under his palms.

            “Who would have profited from the death of your family?” Loki’s voice was a pleasant rumble under his cheek.

            “Me.  I was a suspect for a while.  Stane, since he took over the company when they died.  But Stane is dead and I had him thoroughly investigated after he tried to kill me all those times,” Tony said dryly.  “There was nothing.”

            “And what of Hydra?”

            Tony froze, his hands going still and splaying wide on Loki’s back. “Right.  Hydra.  I haven’t investigated from that angle.” He pulled away from Loki and turned back to his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard as he muttered to himself. “It would have to have been someone reasonably high up in the organization-”

            “Stark.”

            “-but that would have been over twenty years ago, so they’d be late 50s-60s now-”

            “Stark.”

            “-cross reference with known associ-mmff.” Tony stopped and looked up at Loki, who’s eyes were glinting with amusement while he had his hand over Tony’s mouth.

            “Try to at least spend some time outside this room,” he said, and pressed a kiss to Tony’s temple.

            “Right.  No turning into Gollum,” Tony said, but he knew Loki was already gone. He spent another hour of searching and collating and downloading documents before thirst finally drove him upstairs. The glare of the bright sunlight outside made him squint as he poured himself some orange juice, but since this was probably one of the last nice days of fall Tony grabbed his tablet and went outside to continue working.

            To his credit, when a squad of six heavily armed and armored men roared up to his balcony wearing vaguely familiar looking jet packs, Tony reacted a lot more quickly than he did the first time Loki appeared in his living room.  However, he was just not fast enough to go from reclining on a deck chair to successfully reaching the safety of the tower and the suits inside.  Tony had time to hear his tablet hit the concrete with a sharp crack and feel the roughness of the concrete under his bare feet before something wrapped around his waist with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He was jerked backwards off his feet, his head hit something and everything went black.

            The next thing he knew was hands roughly searching him with an almost embarrassing thoroughness, shaking him awake. “Take anything that could possibly be electronic,” someone ordered, and his watch was yanked off his wrist with enough force to gouge the back of his hand.  He opened his eyes, groaning and closing them again as fluorescent light stabbed into his brain. Then he was flipped over and his arms were wrenched up behind his back and secured with what felt like zip ties, cutting off circulation to his hands.  His still healing arm protested the treatment and Tony hissed, flinching towards his left side to relieve the strain, but a heavy boot across his upper back held him to the floor.  From the cold metal against his cheek and the distinctive rumble of tires on a highway, they were in a vehicle, probably a van.  Staying on the move. Smart. Tony closed his eyes and tried to keep breathing even as his heart was pounding fast enough to make him dizzy and nauseous.  These people didn’t seem like the type to be patient while he struggled through a panic attack.

            “We are going to ask you a series of questions,” a muffled voice said, and Tony heard the threatening buzz of an activated stun baton. “I recommend you answer them quickly and honestly, for your own sake.”

            “Well, you know me, I love to talk,” Tony said, trying to turn his head to get a look at the speaker. “I’m a Pisces and I love long walks on the beach-” he stifled a scream through clenched teeth as the electrified baton was pressed to the sole of his foot, sending 1200 volts of electricity through him.

            After a moment it was taken away.  “Ok, ok, you got me, I’m actually a Gemini-” he panted, which earned him a much longer kiss of the baton; Tony’s whole body convulsed as his muscles locked up, but the boot on his neck and a hand around his ankle held him in place.

            “Watching you get electrocuted is almost as fun as listening to your wit, so don’t think I’m not enjoying myself.  Sadly, however, I do have some questions that I need answers to, so let’s skip the small talk, shall we?  Where are Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov?”

            Tony rested his head against the cool metal floor and mentally prepared himself for what was coming. “I don’t know,” he said, and this time he didn’t fight the screaming.

             He had no idea how long they’d been riding around asking the same question over and over, but they had finally stopped asking about Steve and Natasha and moved on to trying to find out how SHIELD was uncovering Hydra operatives.  Unfortunately they seemed as unwilling to accept “magic” as an answer as they were “I don’t know” before. At this point, Tony was so exhausted from repeated tasing that he was slurring his words.

            Clearly getting frustrated, the man asking all the questions kicked him in the side. “I’ll ask you again, where are they putting the Hydra agents?”

            “I don’t know!" Tony coughed around the pain in his side.  His vision was starting to get a little gray around the edges; he sincerely hoped that he passed out soon.

            “How-” The man stopped when something landed on the roof with a loud thump, causing it to buckle slightly. From behind his head Tony heard breaking glass, a man’s scream, and then the sounds of horns honking as the vehicle veered sharply to the left. The men around him braced themselves as the vehicle bounced over a ditch and swerved to a stop.

            “Did anyone else hear that? Does that sound like a pissed-off sorcerer to you?”  Tony croaked.  He tried to crawl into a corner, out of Loki’s way, but the boot on his back held him still.  All of the men drew their weapons and trained them on the double doors at the back of the van, and there was a moment of silence, broken only by the sounds of the highway.

            Then there was a high pitched scream of metal as Loki ripped the roof off the vehicle and dropped down inside.  Tony couldn’t see the action, but according to the sounds of bodies hitting the floor of the van Loki was doing alright for himself, so he didn’t even feel bad for not helping.

            For the first time in what felt like hours Tony felt like he could breathe again.

 

            “Freeze!” Loki turned to the sound of the voice, and saw a man pointing his weapon at Stark’s head.  The man in his hands tried to kick him in the knee, so Loki crushed his larynx and threw him out the back doors of the van.

            “Oh, you fucked up now,” Stark said weakly, trying to turn his head to see the look on Loki’s face.

            With a half-smile, Loki held his hands away from his body, palms up.

            “Back up and kneel. Hands on the back of your head.” The man ordered, pressing the muzzle of his rifle against Tony's scalp for emphasis.  Loki raised an eyebrow. 

            “Just who the fuck do you think you are dealing with?” Loki almost gave away his new position by laughing at the incredulity in Stark’s voice.  Instead he pinned the man against the wall of the vehicle and set his staff to his chest, letting the illusion on the other side of the van dissipate.  The man’s face was covered so that he couldn’t see his eyes, but he could feel his will capturing the man’s mind like a fly in amber. There was a moment where the man struggled and the thought of a poison pill crossed his mind, but Loki crushed that impulse ruthlessly.

            “No, there will be no harming yourself,” Loki said, releasing him. The man didn’t move other than to let his rifle fall to the floor. “I will send you to death’s embrace soon enough.”  When he turned back he saw that Stark had rolled out of the way and was trying to sit up.  He stooped and snapped the restraints holding his arms behind his back, lips tight with rage when he heard Stark’s hiss of pain as blood returned to his hands.

              “Do you-” Loki bit back the words he was going to say and shook his head.

            “What?”

            “Nothing. Let’s go.”

            “What are we going to do with that guy?” Stark tried and failed to disguise a wince when Loki helped him stand, sagging with exhaustion.

            “I am taking him back to the Tower for…questioning.” A push of Loki’s will and the man collapsed.

            “Yeah? Should I call Maria and let her know she has another Hydra agent to add to her collection, or nah?”

            Loki was still tense with the need to commit violence but he forced his hands to be gentle as he quickly searched Stark for wounds. There was a bruise already blooming on Stark's side. “That’s not going to be necessary,” he said, jaw tight as he looked down at the man at his feet.  

            Later, when Stark was safely in bed and his breathing had become deep and regular, Loki watched him for a long moment, studying the features gilded by the blue light of the arc reactor.  Stark muttered something in his sleep and rolled over, stretching out on his stomach with a sigh.  Loki trailed fingers down the divot of his spine before he stood and silently made his way out of the bedroom, down to where Tony had insisted on securing the Hydra agent under lock and key in his lab. 

            Loki dragged one of Stark's work chairs to the corner where the man sat. Without his tactical gear, the Hydra agent was just another over-muscled dullard that organizations of all type prized to do their dirty work. His eyes were small, his jaw wide, and his nose looked like it had been broken multiple times.  At the moment, his gaze was blank, but Loki could hear his mind raging.  It was fascinating, really, how humans reacted when mind-controlled. Agent Barton had settled into a tightly leashed fury that Loki knew would turn on him with a second of freedom. Selvig had sunk into his control like a drug addict into his latest high, too euphoric from his contact with the Tesseract to fight.

            _Jack Rollins_ , Loki gleaned, was a fighter.  He was a rabid dog biting at the bars of his cage, willing to chew his own limb off to escape.

            He drew his journal out of his personal pocket of space time and willed Rollins’ body to stop breathing.  Loki took the time to search Stark’s desk for a pen while Rollins’ face grew red and his mind started screaming for air.

            “Just so we are clear,” Loki said as he sat down and flipped to an empty page in his journal. “I don’t need you to _talk_ to get the information I need. I hope you understand that by now.”  He could hear the man’s heart thundering as his body burned through its available oxygen, thoughts panicking as his diaphragm refused all orders to move.  “But it would make things easier.  I also hope you understand that you are not going to survive this.”  He lifted his order and Rollins’ body noisily sucked in air. “Let’s get started, shall we?” Loki asked mildly, and settled down to peel the secrets from this man’s rotten mind.

            About two hours later, Loki looked down at his neatly written notes and underlined an address.  To look at him, Rollins was untouched, but in his neatly locked away mind he was broken with humiliation at how much he’d given up, how little he’d been able to fight.  Loki might have sympathized if the man hadn’t dared to lay a finger on Stark. “I believe we are finished,” Loki said, sending the journal away. “Now is just the question of what to do with you.  How would you like to die?”  The image of a shot to the head flashed across the man’s mind.  Loki weighed the convenience of the bullet over the satisfaction of something more…lingering.

            “You clearly don’t know anything about me, or you would not have attempted this bit of foolishness with Stark.  At first, I considered having you cut off your own limbs until you died of blood loss.” Loki flipped the pen through his fingers as he thought.  “But fortunately for you I believe it would be more beneficial if your death appeared to be a suicide.  So instead, you’re going to go to the nearest body of water and drown yourself.”  He freed Rollins and escorted him through the tower until they were at the service entrance. “Go,” he ordered, and the man started running.  His mind actually registered relief as he left Loki behind, at least for the few minutes it took for him to get to the East River and walk off the end of the pier. Then for the three to four minutes it took for hypoxia to set in, while his body was violently fighting between obeying Loki’s iron will and tens of thousands of years of honed survival instinct, there was screaming and begging and threatening.  By the time Loki had returned to Stark’s suite and poured himself a small glass of Asgardian alcohol over ice – Stark had convinced him to try it, and Loki had to admit that it was superior to drinking it straight – Rollins was dead. 

            For the next week he pondered the address in his journal, even as he handed over everything else he’d learned to Hill, leaving her to pore over it like a busy spider in her web.  In the meantime, Stark’s first few fundraiser fishing expeditions went well; Stark had not at all been surprised to learn the number of politicians and their sycophants that were members of Hydra and Loki had come away with an entertaining amount of blackmail material.  Those functions were almost as tedious as the operations with Hill, but at least he had better company.  

            “You know, it’s nice to be able to just point to the bad guy and be able to say ‘him, that’s him,’ and leave the shooting and the dramatic standoffs to someone else,” Tony commented on one such evening, watching the bartender mix him a martini. “Unless, of course, that’s your favorite part,” he amended when he saw the look on Loki’s face. “Since _I’m_ still not fully healed from the last firefight I’m good with staying on the bench for a while.”

            “You’ve done a very poor job of that, Stark,” Loki said darkly.

            “Not my fault.  I was almost literally on a bench and they kidnapped me. Whoa, whoa, don’t break the bar,” he said when he saw Loki’s hand tighten on the wood.  “Don't worry about it. At this point I’ve been kidnapped so much I feel like I should have a frequent customer card.”  Tony's voice was light, but Loki hadn't forgotten that it had taken Tony a couple of days to even go near windows without having a panic attack.

            “You need a keeper.”

            “That’s not what you’re here for?”  Tony took a sip of his martini and tipped the bartender a twenty before moving out of the way for the next guy. Tony nodded his head in greeting at the man, who happened to be a junior state senator.

            “I’ve done a very poor job of that,” Loki muttered as he followed Tony to a quiet corner of the room where they could observe without being in the way.

            “What? Hey,” Tony turned and put a hand on Loki's shoulder.  “Look, this is my life, ok? I chose this.  Literally, when I decided to out myself as Iron Man. And I’m not going to live like Howard Hughes in fear of it happening again.” 

            Loki had no idea who Howard Hughes was but he didn’t argue because at that point Maria Hill came up to them, dressed as one of the catering servers and carrying a plate of canapes.  “Care for any?” She said sweetly, but her eyes promised death if either of them made any smart comments.

            Tony, for once, was wise enough to keep his mouth shut other than a murmured thank you.  When she handed him a napkin and a canape, he handed her a list of names folded into a five dollar bill.

            “Keep the change, sweetheart,” Tony said loudly as she walked away.  Loki rubbed a hand over his mouth to disguise a smile as her back stiffened with a low growl.

            “Don’t torment the staff, Tony, I thought I raised you better than that,” Pepper said as she came up from behind to stand between them, hooking one arm in Tony’s and another in Loki’s.  “Was that what I thought it was?”

            “Yep, work’s done for the evening.”

            “Anyone I should know about?”  

            “One of our vendors, unfortunately. Bauxite and cobalt.”

            Pepper only nodded thoughtfully, murmuring polite nonsense as people walked by and greeted her. “Let me know which one when you have a chance. Having fun, Loki?”

            Loki quirked his mouth ruefully. “As much as ever, Ms. Potts.”

            “That’s a shame, we can’t have that. Dance with me?” She took Loki's drink and handed it to Tony.  “I want to be the envy of every woman here.”

            “Hey!” Tony protested. “I thought that was my job.”

            “Then you can dance with him next,” she said with a wink, pulling Loki towards the orchestra.

            “Also, we are going to talk about why I am ‘Stark’ and she’s ‘Ms. Potts,’ Loki!” He called after them, grumbling when Loki only smirked at him over his shoulder.           

 ***

            The next evening, Loki stood outside an enormous bank building, hands in his suit pockets as he studied the brick and marble building.  He watched as it emptied at the end of the work day, skimming thoughts as people passed by him, but nothing stood out as anything other than the normal human banalities.  He slipped inside, wandering the hallways using a stolen memory until he was standing in front of a series of metal cages with heavy reinforced doors.  The men stationed between the doors were alert and armed to the teeth, but didn’t see Loki any more than the other humans had.  He stepped sideways to get past the two locked doors and lingered at the row of computer screens before continuing through to the door at the far wall.

            Inside was a man in a metal tube, so cold and still that if it hadn’t been for the slight hum of his unconscious mind Loki would have thought he was dead. He wiped the slight film of condensation off the glass and saw the man’s metal arm.

            So.  Here was Stark’s would-be assassin. He studied the complicated array of wires and pipes surrounding the tube, wondering if the man would die if he destroyed them or if he would wake up. 

            Loki closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to the cold glass.

            The man’s mind was blindingly white.  He concentrated, and the whiteness resolved itself into a snowy plain, almost indistinguishable from the overcast sky.  The sound of a train thundered incessantly in the background.  Turning in a slow circle, it appeared that Loki was alone, until he saw a dark shape huddled some distance away.  He approached the figure slowly, watching as its shape flickered from a young man with short hair first wearing a brown uniform, then a scruffy blue coat.  It would settle for a while on the long-haired, black clad figure from the tube, before the flickering would start again. 

            “Who are you?”  The man barely registered Loki’s presence, much less his question.  Instead, he brushed his hand over something on the ground, studying it intently.  Looking down, he saw that it was Captain Rogers’ gaudy shield.  The man would stare at it until the slowly drifting snow would settle on it, before brushing it off again.

            Loki stooped to pick up the shield, finally getting the man’s attention. “Who are you?” he asked again, but the figure only looked confused and the flickering grew more rapid.  When he handed the man the shield, the flickering stopped on the man with the blue coat.

            “Who are you?”

            The man frowned and opened his mouth a couple of times, the answer struggling to get out.  His shape started to flicker around the edges, and Loki noticed that it had stopped snowing and that the clouds were thinning. The man was trying to remember.

            “Who-“

            “Bucky!” The man burst out, finally. “The man, this man” he held up the shield, “called me Bucky.”

            “His name is Steve Rogers,” Loki said, “and he will be coming for you.”

            “Steve,” the man, Bucky, repeated. The name echoed in the man’s mind, spoken with fondness, frustration, and everything in between.  At his feet the snow started turning red, as if blood were seeping up from the ground.

            “Look at me.” Bucky looked up from the shield.  His shape flickered to the man in black with the metal arm. “I want you to remember everything. Everything they made you forget.”

            Bucky’s hands tightened on the shield.  “I will.”

            “When you do, we will meet again.”

            Loki opened his eyes, relieved to be out of the unnatural blankness of this man’s mind.  When Stark had said the man was probably brainwashed he wondered if Stark had known how true that was.

            When he stepped out of the closet the man at the desk of computers leapt to his feet, sputtering something in his surprise. Loki picked him up and threw him across the room, out of the way of the spray of bullets that came from the guards at the door.  A pair of knives flew unerringly through the bars separating Loki from the guards and the men fell to the ground, blood bubbling around the blades in their throats.  He summoned his staff as the man scrambled to call for help and held the tip to the man’s chest, watching as blackness swallowed the man’s eyes and left an obedient blue behind.

            “You will wake the man in the closet, then you will wait here with him.  Another man will come, and you will answer all of his questions,” he ordered.

            “Yes, sir.” The man sat back down at his desk and started typing. Somewhere a machine whirred to life and Loki left.   

 

            He stepped sideways to emerge next to a large, shallow pool in the center of DC and settled himself on a bench to wait.

            Sure enough, as the sun went down past the horizon and the sky shaded to deep twilight blue, he saw Rogers approaching at a deceptively easy lope.  He watched Rogers run by twice, making sure that he was not being followed or monitored, before he allowed himself to be seen.   He could tell when Rogers spotted him because his pace stuttered before as came to a halt in front of where Loki sat.

            Loki stood as he approached, holding his hands palm up at his sides.  “I come in peace, Captain.”

            “What do you want, Loki?”

            “Let’s start with what I can give you before we talk about what I want, shall we?”

            “What could you possibly have that I would want?”  Rogers said warily.

             “The man you knew as Bucky.” Loki did his best to say his name without curling his lip. Humans had such ungraceful names. _Bucky._ _Steve._ _Bill. Todd_. Ugh.

            Rogers took a step back as if he had been struck, reflexively looking around to see if anyone could have heard.  “How do you know about Bucky? Tony told you, didn’t he?”

            Loki chose his words carefully.  “Does the how really matter, Captain? I know what he was, especially to you.   I know that you seek him and I know that he doesn’t remember you.   I can assist you with both.”

            It was a long time before Rogers spoke again.  “Again, what do you want, Loki?”

            “For now, let us just consider this a gesture of good will.”

            “You want me to owe you a favor,” Steve translated, voice flat. 

            Loki smiled, spreading his hands wide.  “I think gratitude wouldn’t be amiss. Your friend is a dangerous man surrounded by dangerous people.”

            Steve eyed him for a long time.  “This is how you compromised Tony, isn’t it?  You found what he wanted more than anything else, and tempted him with it.”

            “Tempted? Enough of your puerile notions of good and evil, Captain Rogers.  Perhaps I want to know what this man’s life means to you. If you are not interested in the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier, I’m sure there are others who are. SHIELD, perhaps, or one of the other many acronym agencies you humans delight in creating. After all, he has quite a bit of blood on his hands and it would be a credit to myself if I captured such a dangerous criminal.” He turned as if to leave but Steve held out a hand, stopping him.

            “Goddammit Loki, if you’ve found him then of course I want to know where he is.”  Loki raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, until Steve added a “please” with an appropriate amount of sincerity.  

            Loki made a show of grudgingly producing a card from thin air, where he had written an address on the back. “He’s here. In the vault. Don’t mind the bodies, do what you will with the scientist.”

            Steve took it with only a moment of hesitation, body tensed like he was ready to run there immediately.  He flipped over the card to the address printed in gold on the other side. _177E Bleecker Street_.  “And this?” he asked.

            “Someone who can help you.” When Steve just stood there, looking torn, like he was still fearing a trick, Loki made shooing motions. “Go. Hurry. Before I change my mind.”

***

                A couple of weeks later, Steve stared at the card in his hand, then up at the building in front of him.  There was no sign on the building besides the discreet plaque with the address on it, nothing to indicate who or what was inside.  The only distinguishing feature was an enormous circular skylight on the top floor with a strange design on it.

                “Why in the hell would he send us here?” He wondered aloud.   Bucky only shrugged, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.  This was only his second time out of doors since he’d woken up, _really_ woken up, and he was hating every second.  “Guess I’ll knock and find out.”

                The man who opened the door only deepened the mystery further.  Steve had spent enough time with Thor that he didn’t find the man’s clothes too bizarre, but Bucky was openly staring. 

                “Can I help you?”  The man said impatiently.

                Steve held up the card.  “Someone gave us this.”

                “Who?” The man took the card and flipped it over, scanning the address Loki had written on the back, but it apparently was no more informative to him than it had been to Steve.

                “Loki?”  Steve couldn’t keep it from coming out as a question.  He shifted his weight uncomfortably.   Accepting help from anyone, but particularly Loki, still rubbed him the wrong way.

                “Really?” The man studied them again and then stepped aside, opening the door wider.  “Come in, then.”


	7. Retaliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn for the worse, because Hydra won't let anyone be happy.

            Tony was still sprawled half on the bed and half off, breathing heavily and practically wearing Loki as a blanket, when he heard the sound of an incoming message on his phone. Loki laughed when Tony squirmed underneath him, kissing him lightly between his shoulder blades and rolling off onto the bed.  Tony stood, staggering slightly, and retrieved his phone from the pocket of the pants he’d shed in the living ro-nope, in the kitchen. He pulled up his new messages and collapsed back into bed.

 _Have you seen this guy’s arm???  Steve’s friend?_  Stephen’s text said. Steve’s friend?  Tony frowned and tilted his head as he tried to figure out what in the hell Stephen was talking about.  “Hey, Loki, do you know why Stephen would be texting me about some friend of Steve’s with a noteworthy arm?”  As soon as he finished saying it out loud the lightbulb went on.  “Holy shit, he did it, Steve found Bucky.  Christ, I can only imagine how much bodily harm and property damage that must have entailed.” _Only when he was trying to kill me,_ Tony typed back. _What’s up?_ “But why is he with Stephen?”

            Loki glanced up from his own phone, from where he had been scrolling through something assiduously.  He insisted that it was news from Asgard, but Tony secretly thought Loki was addicted to Wikipedia and one day he was going to prove it.  “I sent him there.”

            Tony’s phone dinged again. _Neurological interface with cybernetics like nothing I’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t staring at it right now. Going to try to send you a pic_.  Tony typed back _??? Terminator is with you right now??_   _For god’s sake why? RUN_ before setting his phone down and rolling over to stare at Loki pointedly.  “I think I need to hear this story from the beginning.”

            When Loki was finished, Tony draped himself over Loki’s chest, feeling rather pleased with himself.  “I knew you’d feel bad for him, you big softy.”  Loki scowled and opened his mouth but Tony threw a leg over his waist to sit on his lap before he could protest.  “Loki,” Tony said seriously, “look at me.” He put his hands on Loki’s shoulders, squeezing them. “You can do nice things and still be a supervillain. I won’t think any less of you.”

            Loki rolled his eyes but smiled, pulling Stark down to his chest and rolling them until he was flat on his back and Loki was braced over him. “Do not assign good deeds to me until you know my motivations.”

            “Yeah, yeah, I know.  Good things, wrong reasons.”  Loki raised an eyebrow at Stark’s blithe tone, wondering if he could comprehend the type of patience required to lay plans whose payoff was measured in centuries. But he did not comment, just dipped his head down to capture Stark’s lips in a kiss.

            Stark made an urgent noise and broke out of the kiss. “What time is it?”  He grabbed his phone. “Hmm, 6:32.  The charity event tonight starts at 7.”

            Loki started to lever himself off the bed but Stark pulled him back down. “7 really means 9, we’ve got time.”

            Loki looked down at Stark with exaggerated concern.  “And when Pepper tries to kill you, I should…Assist? Not assist?”

            “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Stark complained. “Fine. I’m getting up.”

            Loki, of course, was ready in seconds, so he sat on the bed and listened to Stark ramble on about the status of his latest commission while he got dressed, a process as comfortable as it was familiar. When Tony passed by him to go brush his teeth Loki grabbed his wrist and pulled him close to stand between his knees.

            “After your escapades last month and in Vanaheim, when it became clear that you can’t be trusted to keep yourself out of trouble-” Stark started protesting so Loki kissed him into silence “-I made you something. Tonight, since I will be guarding you from a distance, I want you to have it.”

            “Right, I forgot tonight was bait night.” Stark watched with interest as Loki produced a bracelet made of wide, flat, matte black chain links connected by smaller silver links; when it caught the light you could see that there was a subtle glossy pattern on it, something that looked almost Celtic.

            “These are dwarven metal, much like the armor I gave you,” Loki said as he fingered the black links.  “The silver ones are uru, an ore unique to Nidavellir that has a particular affinity for magic.”

            Stark took it from him, whistling low in admiration. “It’s beautiful, Loki.” He studied it more closely and flipped it over, looking for a clasp. “How do I put it on?”

            “The gift isn’t what it is, but what it does.  Once you put it on, only you will ever be able to get it off again, so no one will ever be able to take it from you." Loki looked down at the bracelet, suppressing the memory of the fear and rage he'd felt when JARVIS had told him that Stark had been taken from the Tower.  More people would die for that insult, he promised himself, and looked back up at Stark, who was looking at him curiously.  "But what is important is that I spelled it so that you can summon a suit to yourself, no matter where you are, within seconds.”

            Stark blinked and frowned as he processed that.  “You mean, like _your_ armor? One second, Loki Casual, next second, you’re all armored up?”

            “Exactly.”

            “Oh. My. God.” Stark’s eyes grew wide and his gaze distant as he no doubt imagined all of the dramatic entrances he could make with such a spell.  After a moment his gaze focused back on Loki and he shoved the bracelet into his hands.  “Help me put it on," he said as he pulled up his sleeve, "I have to try this out. How does it work?”

            Loki draped the length of chain on Stark’s wrist and when the ends touched they connected together seamlessly, shrinking to be snug on his wrist.  It came to rest just below the faded, crooked L scar on Tony's wrist; Loki ran a thumb over it and he felt Stark press a kiss to the top of his head.  “Since you have no talent for magic of your own, to summon your armor I need a keyword to set into the spell.”

            “Use ‘Merchant of Death,’” Stark said after a moment. “Not something I’m going to say much by accident.”

            Loki’s fingers glowed green for a moment as he covered the bracelet with his hand.  “No words necessary. Just think it with sufficient concentration.”

            “So cool.” Stark took a few steps back from the bed, hand automatically coming up to fiddle with the bracelet before he forced his arms down to his sides. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a line forming between his eyebrows from concentration. After a few moments Loki heard a sound like a chorus of far off bells and then green and gold light surrounded Stark, glowing brightly in the dimly lit bedroom.  Despite himself Loki had to grin at the childlike delight on Stark's face for the seconds he was swallowed in light. When it dissipated Stark was wearing his dwarven armor, which he had recently recolored in tones of black and gold instead of his trademark red.  At the time, Stark had commented that he'd changed it so that he would match Loki if they went on another mission together, and the depth of possessiveness Loki'd felt at the thought of Stark wearing his colors had surprised him; so much so that he'd started pulling off Stark's clothes right there in the lab to show his appreciation.

            “Ok, this pretty boy is officially titled the "Oh Shit Suit" from now on," Stark said with a wide grin as the suit opened up for him to step out of.  He climbed onto the bed to straddle Loki, framing his face with his hands and kissing him deeply.  When he pulled back, Stark had a look of intent in his eyes that had heat crawling down Loki's spine.  “You are amazing," he said softly, kissing him again. "Later I’m going to thank you properly, my sorcerous sugar daddy.  Now let’s go before the first time I have to use it is to defend myself from Pepper.”

            Despite the fact that they were running late, Stark insisted on having Happy drive so that he could make a suitably dramatic entrance with Pepper prominently at his side and Loki nowhere in sight, as they'd planned weeks ago.  Maria had called a meeting to express her concerns that Hydra was starting to connect Loki to the missing Hydra operatives and they had all agreed that a change in tactics was required.  Hence what Tony had started calling "bait nights."  So while Stark performed for the public Loki was left skulking around the edges waiting for something interesting to happen; at the moment, Loki had taken a position by the bar so that he would have a clear line of sight on Stark and Pepper holding court by the entrance. 

            Even as he assessed the latest in a long line of debutantes, sycophants, and politicians - this one was a short young woman, long auburn hair, and almost certainly not hiding a weapon under that dress - Loki had to roll his eyes as Stark gave her big smile as she approached.  Stark and his redheads, _honestly._   Over the dull roar of the crowd he couldn’t tell what Stark was saying, but whatever it was had her laughing behind her hand and Pepper shaking her head and trying to hide a small grin.  Loki kept an eye on them as he scanned the crowd and frowned as something caught his attention, like a dissonant note in a song. He started to make his way to Stark, weaving through the crowd as he studied the mystery girl more intently.  For the most part she kept her gaze demurely down and to the side, as if shy or overawed, but her shoulders were tense, her body language slightly off.  He was only halfway to them when he saw it - at another comment from Stark she looked up and her smile was easy but her eyes were cold. Something whispered across his senses, then the woman reached out to lay a hand on Stark’s wrist and red tendrils of light coiled out of her fingers.

            In an instant, Loki was there, one hand on her arm and one on Stark’s.

 

            Tony couldn’t even remember the joke he was in the middle of setting up when he felt the barest brush of fingers against his skin and then the world vanished.  For a second or a minute or an hour Tony felt like someone had dug fingers into his brain and was trying to rip him in half.  First he was in his old nightmares, desperately searching cold bodies for signs of life, then he was huddled, shaking, in a corner with someone beside him, staring at a Stark Industries logo and listening to the missile ticking ominously with the stench of death in his nose. The image blurred, clashing with the image of a sandy desert, and then there was grit on his tongue and smoke in his lungs.  He had enough presence of self to realize that these weren't all his memories before there was a wash of crimson and then there was blue skin and red eyes and he was staggering backwards with the migraine from hell. 

            Pepper had a hand on his arm and was pulling him away from where Loki was apparently having a staring contest with the young woman Tony had just been talking to.  He had a grip on her wrist and where they were touching Tony could see coils of red and green light colliding. 

            After a moment, Loki narrowed his eyes and curled his lip. “You are powerful, child, but I am powerful and _old._ ” The girl had just enough time to try to pull away in dismay before her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

            “What the hell was that?” Tony glanced around, wincing from the pain in his head, but thankfully no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual yet.  “Pepper, could you go get Maria? I think I saw her by the restrooms.”

            “Stark.” Loki stepped over the girl's body, crowding him. “What did you see?” His voice was low and vicious.

            “What?” Tony backed up, surprised at the anger in Loki's voice.

            “ _What did you see?”_ Loki pulled him close with a hand fisted in Tony’s suit jacket, and he could hear threads popping.

            “A-a missile with my name on it.  And a flashback from my old nightmare.” But another face flashed across his eyes and he saw Loki narrow his eyes when he realized Tony was lying. 

            “What more than that?” Loki growled, almost nose to nose with him, and for the first time in a long time Tony felt a flash of fear at the look in Loki's eyes. 

            “Calm the fuck down, Loki," Tony hissed, shoving at him angrily. "There's more important – hey, where did she go?”  The girl’s body had vanished.

            Loki cursed and released Tony’s jacket, looking vaguely surprised that he’d had a grip on it in the first place. “There was another here. She wasn’t alone.” He scanned the room as if he was going to see her walking away while Tony smoothed his jacket and tried not to lose his shit in the middle of the crowd.  People were already starting to look at them curiously.  

            “What _was_ that?” Tony rubbed his temples. “Holy fuck my head hurts.”

            “The woman was here for you.  She tried to bespell you for some purpose, to twist your thoughts.  She is strong but untutored.” Loki was still trying to scan the room for anything else unusual, but whoever she was, she was gone. “I think you should return to the Tower.  I will try to find her,” he said without looking at Tony.

            Tony was too shaken to argue. He texted Happy to bring the car around and brushed Maria off with a promise to give her a full report later, because for the moment he desperately needed to _not_  to think about what just happened.  He fled to the portico and waited for Pepper to appear; once outside he lifted his face and closed his eyes, letting the crisp air of the fall night chill his lungs and cool his overheated brain, trying to get his heart to slow its frantic pace.

            “Tony?” Pepper said softly, touching him lightly at his elbow so he wouldn't startle.  “Happy’s here.”  Opening his eyes, he nodded and helped her into the car before going around to the other side. “So what happened in there?” she asked as he slid in beside her.

            Tony stared out the window as the lights of the city streaked by.  He could see Pepper watching him in the reflection on the glass. “I don’t know," he said finally.  "Loki said someone tried to, you know,” Tony made a gesture around his temple. “I saw some crazy stuff and then it was over.”

            “How are you feeling now?”

            “I’m fine,” he said, turning towards her and forcing a smile. "Loki stopped her before it went too far."

            Pepper shook her head and sighed. “Tony, that is not your ‘I’m fine,’ face. I’ve seen this face, this is your ‘everything is going to shit and I don’t want to worry anyone’ face. What really happened?”

            Tony rubbed said face in his palms, grimacing when he noticed how sweaty they were. He rolled the window down, feeling like the car was stiflingly close and warm. “Loki has been hiding something, and I think I saw what he was hiding when that woman did her thing.”  He admitted, forcing himself to meet her eyes, suddenly miserable when he saw the sympathy there.  “He seemed pretty fucking freaked out by it, and now I don’t know what’s going to happen. Also my head hurts. Like a hangover but without the fun in getting there.”

            Pepper scooted closer to him, leaning against his side and taking his hand in hers. She was quiet for a while, so Tony kept staring out the window and trying to keep the dread at bay.

            “Do you think you’ll see him again?”

            Tony touched the length of chain on his wrist. “I think so, yeah.” _I hope so._

            “Then you’ll have a chance to talk about it.”

            “Oh, goody,” Tony said bitterly.  The thought of that made him search the car for a drink but he came up empty.  He fell back against the seat and closed his eyes. “In that case, we’re doomed.”

            “Come on, Tony,” she said gently.  Part of him hated hearing her talk like she was ‘handling’ him, but the other part wanted to curl up against her and let her tell him that everything was going to be okay.  “How much couples therapy did we do when we were trying to make it work? I know you didn’t sleep though all of it. You were getting pretty good at talking it out there at the end.”

            “Didn’t change anything, though.”

            “No amount of talking was going to make us work, Tony. We were just...not good together.  Even you have to admit that it’s been better since we just let it go and went back to being friends.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “It's not like that with Loki.  You have to try, Tony.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be as happy as you’ve been in the past year.”

            “Yeah,” Tony said on a long sigh.  He rubbed his eyes until the tears that threatened receded and went back to staring out the window. When they got back to the Tower Tony gave Pepper a kiss on the cheek, smiling a little when she squeezed his hands in encouragement.  Stepping back, he knocked on the window after he closed the door to let Happy know she was ready to go. His hand was drawn to the bracelet on his wrist and he fiddled with the links as he made his way to his private elevator, hitting the button for his living room.  On a whim, however, he stabbed the button for his lab instead.  Once the adrenaline rush had worn off, Tony had been fighting off the shakes at the close call; even now he could feel himself shuddering randomly, like a chill he couldn't get rid of.  For some reason, when Loki had been unable to mind control him with the staff, Tony had assumed that he was somehow invulnerable to mind games.  But the woman had barely touched him and he’d been ripped from his body, no way to fight, no way to struggle. Tony dug his fingernails into his palm as he suppressed the memory, confident that he'd be seeing it soon enough in his dreams.

            “Good evening, sir.”  The lights rose as Tony walked in, part of him calming at the familiar smell of oil and metal and the sound of DUM-E beeping cheerfully at him.

            “Hey JARVIS.  I’m having a bad day, you know what to do.”  Instantly throbbing bass, angry guitars, and screaming vocals filled the room, matching the pounding in his head and loud enough that he couldn’t hear himself think.  He pulled out the emergency bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of the desk and took a long swallow. Right now, most of the space in the lab was taken up by Loki’s replacement Destroyer, which was partially assembled along the far wall, still skeletal and vaguely menacing.  He picked up a wrench, idly tossing it end over end as he looked over the bot, then glanced at the roughly dozen other projects he was in the middle of, including six commissions for Stark Industries and a new suit.  His steps took him to the far wall, where he’d installed the secure storage room during his first misadventure with Loki.  It was empty now; the leftover backpack nukes were stored in a lead-lined container set in the floor and his autonomous suits had their own floor.

            “Hey JARVIS, is this wall load-bearing?”  He took another swallow as he considered the concrete wall in front of him.

            “I hesitate to answer that without knowing why you are asking, sir.”

            “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”  Tony set the wrench down and took off his suit jacket, pulling his already loosened tie and partially unbuttoned shirt off as well, leaving him in a plain white tank top.  The sledgehammer was leaning against the wall in the corner with the shop brooms; he gave it a few practice swings to loosen up his shoulders.  “Let’s get a little more room in here, shall we?”

 

            When Tony put the hammer down a few hours later, his shoulders and back were aching pleasantly and he was covered with sweat-streaked grey dust.  He took a long pull of the scotch and looked at his progress; perhaps a quarter of the wall lay in rubble on the floor.  Enough for a good-sized doorway.  He turned around to look for a shop cloth to clean his face with and saw Loki leaning against his desk, arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his face.

            “JARVIS, volume down please.”  The music lowered to a conversational level as he stepped over the rubble. “Hey.  Did you find her?”

            “No.”

            Tony sighed but he hadn’t really expected much different.  DUM-E rolled over, beeping softly and holding a clean rag in its claw. He smiled a little as he took it, patting the little robot on its mainframe, and tried to wipe off most of the sweat.  He noticed with remote interest that he’d raised a few blisters on his hands.    "Was she Hydra?"

           "Yes."

           "Well that's fucking great." Tony tossed the rag onto the table.  He throttled the temptation to start throwing more things and forced himself to start putting his tools away instead.  "So Hydra has magic now. Awesome."

           "Apparently."

            Somehow, despite the music, there was still an excruciating silence in the way Loki was watching him. “What?” Tony said finally.  The tension in the room was making his back itch.  He reached over took another swallow of scotch, trying to drown the urge to flee.

            “Tell me what you saw.”

            He slammed the tool box closed and moved on to the next, movements stiff and jerky.  He forced himself to stop, hands tight on the edge of the desk, and took a deep breath. “I saw you, didn’t I? Red eyes, blue skin? When she tried to put some kind of mind whammy on me, you got caught up in too.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Loki stiffen.  When he looked over, Loki’s face was pale and his mouth a flat line, eyes hard.  Tony looked back down at the bits of wire and plastic shavings on the desk and swept them all into a trash can.  “You gonna tell me about that adoption thing now?”

             “No." 

            The worktable was too clean to give him a reason to avoid facing Loki. Tony sighed, took a look at the remaining level of liquor in the bottle, and set it down. “Whatever you are hiding, or hiding from, you can tell me, Loki.  It’s not going to change anything between us.”

            “No?” Loki’s voice was cutting and laced with anger.

             He felt an angry growl start in his chest, but he forced it back down and he ground his palms into his eyes instead, trying to stay calm. He wished they could just let it go, just pretend and go back to the way things had been just a few hours ago. He wanted that so badly that it made his throat hurt.  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to make his voice steady, and forced himself to meet Loki's eyes. “When I said that I loved you, that meant that I love who you are, not- not what you look like.”

            “Sentiment,” Loki said scornfully, lip curling. His chest so tight he felt like he was suffocating, choking on bile.  The vision from the Other played behind his eyes.  _Stark was commenting about something at his computer before turning around, and the speed with which his look of welcome turned to revulsion made Loki’s stomach turn._

            A few feet away, achingly close, Stark started to pace. “Yes, sentiment.  Sometimes that happens when you spend a lot of time with the same person, you start to care about them.”

            “Lies. No one loves the monsters, Stark.”

            “You’re not a _monster-"_ Stark's voice rose but he visibly forced himself to calm down. "You're not a monster, Loki."

            “What do you know of it, Stark? You know _nothing_ ,” he hissed, voice low.  Rage and fear and pain seethed under his skin, turning his stomach.  He couldn’t stop the bitter poison coming from his lips.  “We’ve spent one year together, out of the thousands that I’ve seen; we cavort in bed, and now you presume to know me? You are a child.  I am a _god._ ” Stark flinched as if the words were actual blows. Loki saw it and hated himself, because now he knew where to put the knives. 

            “I-”

            “Did you think that you could _fix_ me, Stark? Save me? That I could be redeemed with the love of a good man?” He heard the sarcasm in his voice like it was coming from someone else and watched the blood drain from Stark’s face.  "You're not  _that_ good."

            “Loki, _stop_ -”

            Loki affected a look of pity that he knew Stark would hate, warily watching him pace. “I did not know you were so naïve, Stark. Such a romantic.  It would be sweet if it wasn't sad.”

            But Stark was stronger than Loki had given him credit for.  He scrubbed his face with his hands for a long moment, expressions crossing his face too fast for Loki to read, then he crossed the space between them, gaze steady.  “I know what it’s like to hate yourself, Loki. Still doesn’t make you a monster, and you’re not going to make me hate you, too.”

            “Is that what you know?” Loki spat, taking a step back, unsettled.  “You know what it’s like to discover that you are one of a race that you’ve been taught to despise, to kill? That your entire life was built on _lies-_ ” He managed to stop and his eyes widened with horror. 

            Stark’s eyes looked stricken and his mouth opened.

            Loki fled.


	8. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmG59XHj1T4&index=12&list=LLsN1Iz-gaf5pXfP9qC7hsDA) is Tony's song for Loki this chapter. Also, please note the updated tags - there is a trigger warning for this chapter for self-harm. If that's a problem, skip to the bottom for a synopsis for the chapter.

            Instinct drove Loki back to Asgard, to the rooms in the palace where he was raised. He threw himself into his reading chair, gripping the arms tightly as he waited for the shakiness to pass. But sitting still was impossible; he was crawling out of his skin. Pacing, he suddenly hated this room for looking the same, for never changing, just as he hated Asgard itself, hated Thor and Odin because in one frozen, horrible moment his world shattered and _nobody-_

_-even-_

_-noticed._

            Looking down, he realized that he had picked up a small statue of Sleipnir, carved in his youth, and had crushed it; broken wooden legs were digging into his palm. A whole shelf of childhood trinkets had been swept onto the floor, so he dropped this one with the rest and turned on his heel to slam through the doors out of his room, heart pounding as he forced himself to walk through the hallways instead of run.  He had no concept of how long he walked, taking ever dimmer and smaller hallways as he tried to lose himself.  His neck and shoulders ached with the struggle to stay in control, jaw clenched.  He’d lost control before, with Jotunheim, after Frigga’s death, and had vowed never again. As he walked the stonework grew rougher and less gilded, the air colder and stale, until he turned a corner and found himself in the deepest level of the palace.  This time of night the dungeons were mostly lit by the faint golden glow of the spelled cell walls, the residents inside sleeping fitfully or muttering to themselves.   He wandered silently, passing by his old cell, now clean and empty, until he stopped at a cell at the far end from the stairs.

            “My king,” Heimdall said ironically. The light of the cell glinted off his golden eyes and the bits of metal adorning his clothes, and illuminated the cell enough that Loki could see the comfortable and well-made furniture that was meant to make the incarceration more palatable.  He wondered if it helped any more for Heimdall than it had for himself.

            “Heimdall,” he said.  As a child, knowing that Heimdall could see across the Nine Realms had been comforting, like a light against the unformed terrors of the dark.  But Heimdall had had little time for the questions of a persistent child.  When he’d grown into his skills as a sorcerer, evading the all-seeing Heimdall had become a challenge, which the soldier had taken as a personal affront and evidence of Loki’s general perfidy.  In retrospect, the source of his suspicion and mistrust was clear enough – he’d known Loki’s true nature all along.  “Are you enjoying your accommodations?”

            “As much as you did, I expect. Did you come here to gloat?”  His voice was a low rumble in the dark.

            “I don’t need to come all this way to do that, Heimdall.  I can do that from the throne.” Loki paced idly in front of the cell, hands clasped behind his back.  The greatest irony was that Loki wasn't even the one to put Heimdall here; that honor had fallen to Odin himself.  It must have broken the old man's heart.  “Tell me, does the memory of your treachery sting more when you consider that it was for nothing, and that a Frost Giant still sits on the throne of Asgard?”

            “If that is what you came to ask, apparently gloating from the throne is not satisfying enough for you.”  The edge to Heimdall’s voice clearly said the answer was yes. 

            Loki smiled faintly. “Good night, Heimdall,” Loki said evenly, and turned away.  He wondered if Heimdall could still see into every corner of the Nine Realms, or if the confines of the cell stifled his vision as it had stifled Loki's magic.  He climbed the steps mindlessly, lost in thought; eventually his steps slowed as he realized that he was near his mother’s rooms.  He stood in front of the doors for a long while before he pushed them open.

            Nothing had changed since the last time he had been here, planning Thor’s coronation; books and papers were stacked neatly around the room with an organization that had only made sense to her, hand-woven tapestries still graced the walls, and the curtains were even still pulled back to catch the morning light.  There was no sign that anyone had come to clear out the chambers for the next queen of Asgard, whoever she may be.  Perhaps it had been too difficult for Odin or Thor to come to her rooms after she died; the guilt alone should have kept them away, Loki thought bitterly as he knelt by the dark stain on the floor of her balcony. 

            With a rustle of wings and feathers an unnaturally large raven swooped down from the ceiling, hopping a little as it landed. It tilted its head at Loki and quorked.

            “Muninn,” Loki said curtly.  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here.  Is Odin feeling maudlin tonight?”

            It made another high pitched sound as it walked towards Loki in an ungainly waddle.  Its nails made tiny noises against the stone floor and when it was close enough it lifted its foot in the air expectantly.  Loki scowled at it for a moment, unsure if he was willing to accept whatever memory Odin had instructed Muninn to impart, but when the bird cawed impatiently he held his hand out for it to perch on.  It fluffed its feathers and turned its head, catching Loki’s eye and – _sun was streaming in from the balcony, making the room pleasantly warm.  He was viewing the room from near the ceiling, making him dizzy until he adjusted to seeing the world through the raven’s eyes. He saw Malekith approach a cowering Jane and then his surprise when she vanished in a shimmer of light._

_“Witch!” he roars, turning on where Frigga was being held by the monster Loki killed, and was almost killed by in turn. “Where is the Aether?”_

_“I’ll never tell you.”_

_"I believe you.”  At some sign from Malekith, the monster buries her own blade in Frigga’s back, letting her drop to the floor.  Thor’s roar of rage must have startled Muninn because the view becomes chaotic and for a moment there was only light and the sharp smell of ozone.  When Muninn settled again, the view had changed and Thor was out of sight; Frigga’s mouth was moving but if there was sound Muninn didn’t hear it, and all too quickly her eyes went dim. Muninn turned its head to watch Odin approach, face stunned with grief, and –_

            With a growl Loki tossed Muninn into the air.  It circled the room, cawing angrily.  “Tell Odin that it is far, _far_ too late to share our grief at Frigga’s death,” Loki shouted as the bird disappeared into the night. Now, as he looked around, he could see the signs of where the palace custodians had kept the rooms clean, if not tidy; the balcony had been repaired and recently swept, and the flowers near the pool were fresh.

            For a long moment Loki stared at the flowers, chest growing tight.  Turning, he also noticed that the fire that she’d kept burning in her antechamber was still lit, as if she had merely stepped out and would be returning shortly.  Loki backed away until his legs hit a padded bench; he didn’t so much sit as collapse. He covered his mouth with his hands and stared at the fire, at her desk, at the books on the shelf, remembering hundreds of years’ worth of time spent in these rooms.  Each time she had touched his cheek, had kissed his forehead, held his hand, she'd known what he really was.  As a child, singled out and unpopular, she had known why he’d felt so different, so alone, and had said nothing. 

            “You should have told me, Mother,” he said quietly.  With a deep breath he thought about darkness and bitter cold and a brutal world of ice and snow until the tepid, stale air of the room grew almost unbearably hot against his skin.

            There it was.  He looked down at his hands, the blue skin he hated so much.  Black nails like frostbitten flesh. The blue looked so out of place here, in Frigga’s room, that he had the sudden mental image of peeling it back like an orange to find his real skin underneath.  He clenched his fists and felt the sharp bite of pain in his hand; looking down, he saw that a splinter of wood from his broken statue had been driven so deeply into his palm that he was bleeding.  Drops of blue so dark they looked black slid down his fingers before falling to the floor.

            He pressed his thumb against the small wound, mesmerized by the beads of darkness welling up from inside him, the stain they left on the floor, on everything he touched. The pattern his blood left as it pooled on the stone floor seemed meaningful somehow, and he could understand why the superstitious saw the future in it.

            With a sharp intake of breath he pulled out the splinter and shook his head, closing his eyes tightly as he let the illusion of normality crawl back down over his hands.  He held the breath, and then released it slowly as he looked down at the spill of blood on the floor. His face was remote as he dragged his fingers through the small pool, smearing it – it was still much colder than the air around it – before he banished it with a brusque motion.

            The sick, nervous energy that had driven him earlier had drained away, leaving him tired and hollow. He thought about returning to his room, but the idea of it was depressing. He pulled out his phone and checked the time as he got to his feet.

            When he arrived at the tower, silent and invisible, he found Stark asleep on the couch, the room lit only by the light of the television.  Loki watched the flicker of blue light illuminate Stark’s features, still pinched with worry even in sleep.  The bottle of alcohol that Stark had been drinking in the lab was empty and sitting next to the couch, along with a half-eaten carton of fried rice.  Nudging those aside with his feet, Loki sat on the coffee table and ran his fingers over Stark’s cheek, feeling something in him relax when Stark sighed contentedly in his sleep, lines of worry easing.  He trailed his fingertips lightly over the rough stubble on Stark’s jaw, down his throat, and settled his hand on the arc reactor, the thrum of it under his palm comforting and familiar.

            Loki sat there as the sky lightened, letting Stark’s warmth and the soothing rhythm of his breathing thaw the coldness inside.

 ***

            In the morning the ringing of his phone pulled Tony out of a deep sleep.  Blearily he reached for his phone, knocking over a glass in the process. He squinted at the screen before he picked up. “Hey Jane, what’s up?” He cleared his throat and searched his still half-asleep brain for a reason why she would be calling.  “Sorry I haven’t been by lately-“

            “No, its fine,” she said, but she sounded angry and slightly out of breath, like she was hurrying somewhere. “Look, I’m just calling because Thor is headed to you.  We broke up.”

            “What?” He pulled his phone away from his ear to check the time.  God, 10 am.  Way too early to deal with this shit.  He was so tired that his brain felt carbonated.  He closed his eyes and threw an arm over them to block out the midmorning light. “Why?” 

           He'd meant _why me?_ but apparently Jane needed to vent. “Because he’s suffocating me!” Jane screeched.  Tony winced and had to take the phone away from his ear again.  “What in the hell happened on Vanaheim that made him decide he was my babysitter instead of my boyfriend?”    

            “Umm,” Tony said cleverly, thankful that her question sounded rhetorical, since Loki was probably what happened.

            “I mean, he’s been really overprotective lately, but yesterday I got invited to speak at a conference at CERN and Thor tried to tell me that I couldn’t go.”  Tony winced again. “I don’t know how they do stuff in Asgard, but _hell_ no.”

            “I don’t blame you, Jane.  I mean, I’m sure he meant well-“

            “Oh I know he meant well, he told me the whole story about Hydra and all, but I don’t give a shit. Nobody tells me what I can or can’t do, and if he doesn’t know that by now he never will.”  He heard her give a long exasperated sigh.  “Anyway, I have to catch a flight, I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

            “Any idea about his ETA?”

            “Hell if I know.  I’ve never clocked how fast he can fly with that hammer.”

            “Approximately 45 meters per second,” Tony answered automatically.

            “Oh,” Jane said, slightly surprised. “So like, 100 miles an hour? You’ve got a few hours then.  Talk you later, Tony.”

            Tony made a noise of assent and let the phone drop from his fingers, hearing it clatter on the floor.  His thoughts slid sideways as he dozed before he remembered something.  “Hey, JARVIS, was Loki here last night or did I dream that?”

            “No sir, Loki arrived at 4:34 am and left at 7:53 am.”

            Tony grunted and pulled a blanket off the back of his couch and over his head, too tired and hungover to try to think about what that meant. Hours later, time he measured mostly by the fact that the sun wasn’t trying to stab him in the eyeballs anymore, an overfull bladder made Tony roll off the couch and head towards the bathroom.  “What’s the ETA on Thor?” Tony asked as he washed his face and raked wet hands through his hair, trying to get it to lay down flat.

            “He was sighted over Pennsylvania twenty-seven minutes ago, sir.”

            “And that means…”

            “At current rates of speed he should arrive in another hour and thirty-five minutes.”

            Tony yawned and tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to pop his neck.  Walking back out to the kitchen he scooped up a pair of sunglasses off his bedside table, sighing with relief as it reduced the glare of daytime to a soft rosy glow. Because JARVIS was a good bro, he had started the coffee maker when Tony had gotten off the couch, and now there was already enough in the bottom of the pot to fill up a mug.  He dug his phone out of his couch and scrolled through the emails, mostly work, one from Banner, and then tossed it on the side table when he saw there was nothing from Loki.  For a few minutes he drank his coffee, head leaned against the back of the couch, as he debated whether or not to text Loki, and if so, what to say.  Finally, with a groan, he gave up and drained his coffee mug.

            “We’ve got some rooms ready for Thor, right JARVIS?”  He reluctantly climbed off the couch in search of more coffee.

            “Yes, sir.  They’re being cleaned right now.”

            On his table, his phone started ringing again; when Tony saw Pepper’s picture come up, he debated for a moment before he picked it up.  “Hey, Pep,” he said, aiming for conversationally light and not depressed and hungover.

            He must have failed. “Oh, Tony,” she said sympathetically.  “What happened?”

            Rubbing his eyes, he imagined all the ways this conversation could go and they all sounded exhausting and made him want to crawl under the bed.  “I kinda don’t want to talk about it right now, honestly.  The long and short of it is that we talked and Loki left – not like, _left_ as in for good,” _I think_ “but he disappeared and we haven’t talked since.  But Thor’s on his way here because he broke up with Jane, so…there’s that. Whoo, good times.”

            “Oh, I’m so sorry, Tony.  I’m sure things will be fine,” Pepper said.  “Would you like me to call back later?”

            “Sure, babe, I'll talk to you later.”  He hung up and stared at his phone for a while before opening up his text messages.  _FYI Thor’s on his way here.  In case you decide to stop by_ the cursor blinked for a long time as he debated, and finally he added _again._   The sent message notice chimed, and instead of waiting for an answer that might never come, he left his phone to get more coffee and wait for Thor to arrive.

           

            That first night, Tony did his best to be social by offering to take Thor out for dinner and as much human alcohol as he would care to drink.  But Thor only said “Thank you for your hospitality, Stark, but tonight I do not find myself in the mood for company,” and disappeared, so Tony gratefully buried himself in his lab with loud music and a fully stocked coffeemaker.  He worked through the night and most of the next day and finally finished up the Destroyer’s flight stabilization systems before moving on to a Stark Industries commission for the Department of the Army.  They had contracted with SI for some relatively sophisticated learning software for the robots coming out of DARPA to avoid having to do significant reprogramming while out in the field.  What he was giving them was a step up from DUM-E, but worlds away from JARVIS; honestly the hardest part was trying not to make it _too_ good. 

            “Alright JARVIS, go ahead and send that over to –whoa,” he said, grabbing the edge of the table as he got dizzy when he stood up.  “Hey, JARVIS, when was the last time I had something to eat?”

            “What, if anything, did you consume at the fundraiser approximately 40.5 hours ago?”

            Tony sighed and rubbed his eyes.  Pepper was right, he really was worse than a toddler.  At least children remembered to eat.  He was more like a potted plant that needed someone else to feed and water it for it to survive. “Not a good sign, JARVIS.”

            “No, sir.”

            “Where is Thor?”

            “He’s been staring into the refrigerator for the last five minutes.”

            “Perfect.  Can you call in an order for, like, ten pounds of meat? Any kind but chicken.  I’m going to see if Thor wants to cook on the new fire pit.”  The fire pit had been Tony’s idea after Vanaheim. He’d had it installed pretty much just so he could seduce Loki next to it.

            “Yes, sir.”

            Thor’s smile when he saw the fire pit had a tinge of sadness, which was like the opposite of what Tony had been going for.  “We don’t have to, we can just –“ Tony started, but Thor waved off his words and started clearing out the remains of the last fire.

            “It’s nothing, Stark.  I just noticed that Loki must have been the last one to build a fire here.  So the memories were…well,” he shrugged.  “Not entirely unhappy ones.”

            Shit.  Thor was right.  Tony swallowed hard around the memory; it had been less than a week ago, and they’d had some really nice, slow sex on – he cleared his throat and kicked a pillow discreetly away from the fire pit. “Yeah? How can you tell?”

            “He never builds a fire properly.”  Thor gestured towards the partially burnt logs in the middle of the pit.  “He just piles logs together and sets them afire with his sorcery.” 

            Now Tony knew he had an academic and emotional appreciation for the exothermic chemical reaction that was fire in all of its many manifestations, but it wasn’t until he watched Thor clean out the fire pit and carefully arrange logs and kindling that he realized that there was a right way to build a fire. In retrospect, if he’d had to make his own fire on Vanaheim without the benefit of Google he would have been screwed.  While Thor built it up and had his fun poking it, Tony went down to pick up the groceries that had been delivered to the tower. 

            When he made his way back up to the roof Thor was half reclined on some of the cushions, staring up at the stars, such as they were.  It was actually a clear night, but for New York that wasn’t saying much.  “You’re looking in the wrong direction, Thor.  In the city, the lights you want to look at are down there,” he said, tipping his head towards the edge of the roof.  From here, Central Park was a huge, kind of disturbing blank spot amidst all the city lights.  At least the moat of reconstruction near the base of the Tower was mostly complete, making Tony feel a little less like a pariah when he looked out his windows.

            Thor just shook his head and helped Tony put a grate over the fire as it burned down to coals. “I was just remembering one of my first nights back on Midgard, with Jane.”

            “Ah.”  Tony was quiet as he set out the food for Thor to grill, trying to think of what to say. “Um, I’m sorry to hear that you guys are fighting,” he tried after a while, so far out of his comfort zone he probably needed a Bifrost to get back. 

            Thankfully, Thor didn’t seem to feel like talking about it. “I as well.”

            “I have some grog in the bar downstairs,” Tony offered, but Thor shrugged that off too.  Soon, the sounds and smells of sizzling meat filled the air, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since the last time he’d seen Loki.  Speaking of…Tony checked his phone, and sat up straighter when saw that he had a text message. 

            _Get some sleep, Stark._   Sent at three AM.  Well, as far as messages of reconciliation and affection go, it was subpar, but Tony felt like smiling for the first time since Loki vanished.  _Come and make me,_ he answered.  _Also, Thor is insulting your ability to make a fire._

            The answer came a few minutes later. _If it burns, it’s a fire.  I will not build a palace of twigs when I could make a rock burn just as well._

Tony laughed.  “Loki says to get over yourself and that he could build a fire out of rocks.”

            Thor barked out a laugh as well. “That is likely true.”  Since apparently the optimal time to cook food on a fire is when it has subsided to hot coals, Tony checked on all the emails that he’d neglected in the past 40.5 – now 41.75 – hours until dinner was ready.  When Thor was done Tony put down his phone, took his plate, and eyed Thor speculatively.

            “I know Jane has probably picked your brain enough about this, but can you tell me a bit about the, you know,” Tony gestured vaguely at the sky with his fork, “other worlds out there?”

            “There are a great many worlds out there, Stark, more than I could hope to discuss.  Or do you just mean the ones under Asgard’s demesne?”

            “Yeah, those.” Tony tried to look more interested in his food than the conversation, trying to remember everything Natasha had ever told him about information gathering.  It didn’t hurt that as soon as the first bite of steak hit his stomach he was suddenly ravenous.

            “Loki has not described them? He has likely spent far more time among the Nine Realms than I, particularly of late.”

            Tony shrugged. “A little.  Mostly in the form of complaining, really.  I know about Earth, obviously, and Asgard.  He seems to have a lot of business with the dwarves, and I know there was that place with the Dark Elves. That’s what, four out of the nine? Oh, and Vanaheim, how could I forget. So five.” 

            “Those are the primary ones that Asgard has dealings with,” Thor said as he ate his way through the mountains of food with a sort of steady inevitability that reminded Tony of Loki. “Muspelheim is uninhabitable; it is a land of lava and constant fire, home of the Fire Giants. Its companion Jotunheim, a land of darkness and ice, is occupied by Frost Giants.” Tony noticed that Thor’s voice got carefully neutral when he said Jotunheim.  He remembered Loki commenting ages ago about Thor starting a war with Jotunheim and getting kicked out of Asgard. “Niflheim is the realm of Hel, where souls go when they die. And Alfheim…” The face Thor made was priceless, open-minded but shaded with a mild distaste.  “Well, Aflheim is the sister world to Svartalfheim, the Light Elves to their Dark Elves.”

            “Light Elves,” Tony repeated.  “So like…fairies? And stuff?”

            “Fairies, yes.  Unicorns. Mermaids.  Pixies. They are a very peaceful world, so there was little enough reason for me to visit.”

            “Pixies.”  Tony had to pull out his phone.  _Loki, how in the fuck could you not tell me there is a world out there with pixies and unicorns?_ “Sounds…delightful.” _I don’t like to think about it,_ Loki answered, and Tony resolved to photoshop Loki onto a unicorn at the next opportunity. “I’ve seen the Dark Elves, what do the Light Elves look like?”

            Thor shrugged. “Well, there are many different Elf races that comprise the whole species, but for the most part their portrayal in your stories and art are accurate enough.”

            “Huh. What about the Fire Giants and Frost Giants?” Tony asked, setting his plate aside and trying to look casual by poking the fire.  “Not actually made of Fire and Frost, I’m guessing?”

            “No.  Fire Giants are red skinned, and can conjure fire in battle. Frost Giants have blue skin and can conjure ice in battle.  Both are formidable races, and have made war with Asgard in the past, Jotunheim in particular.”

            Tony made a noise of distracted interest and kept poking the fire on autopilot.  Blue skinned. _Race that you’ve been taught to hate. Asgard’s ancient enemy._  He put the poker down and drew his knees up to rest his chin on them. _Entire life built on lies._ Beside him, Thor was still eating, staring into the fire and lost in his own thoughts.

            After a while, Tony picked up his phone and texted Loki. _I miss you.  I love you.  Please come home._

 ***

            Loki was slouched in a chair in his room, watching the sun set over the city of Asgard and wishing vaguely for Stark’s television as a mindless release when Huginn glided in to perch on the table beside him.  Loki ignored it as the bird croaked and fluffed its feathers and sidled closer; after Odin’s attempt to communicate with Muninn, he had no intention of granting the old man another audience through one of his ravens.

            Then he felt a weight on his wrist and the prick of claws.  Glancing down, he scowled and Muninn and had enough time to say “What are you-“ before the bird pulled him in again.

_Frigga is sitting on the floor, cooing to an infant, trying to get a smile but the baby was just staring at her with a serious look on his face.  Loki didn’t realize he was seeing himself until a tiny Thor wanders into view, arms full of toys that he dumps almost on top of the baby. Frigga laughs as Thor runs off again, and even Odin, watching the scene from a nearby bench, cracks a smile._

_“Thank you for bringing me another son,” Frigga says quietly.  “But will he not be missed by his family?”_

_“This boy was left to die by exposure. I thought we could be his family.” Odin’s words are banal enough, but something in his voice must have caught Frigga’s attention._

_“What are you planning?”_

_“Planning? Nothing.” Odin runs a hand over his beard as Thor toddles in with more toys for his new brother. “But I am_ hoping _for peace.”_

            Loki tried to shake Muninn off again, but the raven dug in his claws and held on, cawing angrily.  “What is Odin’s purpose in showing me this?” Loki hissed, turning to Huginn. “Does he wish to be reconciled? Released from his slumber?”

            Muninn pecked at his hand until he turned back.  _This time he is looking out over the throne room, perched high on the back of throne with everyone arrayed before him. Odin is sitting, Thor standing by his side, with Commander Tyr and the Warriors Three standing some distance away.  As one, they all turn to look at Queen Frigga as she strides urgently down the hall to the throne._

_“Loki is alive,” she says as she approaches, the joy in her eyes tempered with sadness. “I have found him. Our son yet lives.”_

_“That is impossible. He fell into Yggdrasil itself, Frigga. He could not have survived. His body would have been scattered across the universe.”_

_“He lives!” She insists, raising her voice. “I’ve seen him!”_

_“Mother…are you sure? Perhaps what you felt was –“ Thor starts gently but he takes a step back when Frigga whirls on him angrily._

_“Do not patronize me, Thor. This was no illusion to soothe a sorrowed soul. He’s alive, and he’s planning something. Something with the Tesseract.” Thor turns to Odin, confused, and the look on Odin’s face hardens from hope to anger._

            This time when Loki moved his arm Muninn relented, alighting from Loki’s wrist to circle the room before landing next to his brother.  They both looked at Loki expectantly.  He stared at them, gathering his thoughts around the cold ball of rage in his chest.  Finally he reached out to Muninn again. “If we are to be reminiscing, let me share a memory with Odin.”

_The cuffs on his wrists chafe and the loss of his magic aches like a missing limb. The muzzle he’d worn on Earth had been taken off for this audience, and the wounds from Loki’s encounter with the beast were all but gone though the aches remain. The warmth of Frigga’s embrace lingers as he faces a cold, angry Odin._

_“The boy I knew is dead. What remains is a creature I do not recognize.” Odin continues speaking, but there is a ringing in Loki’s ears and his breath is coming fast and ragged. Odin turns away, leaving Loki to the guards. The last thing he hears from Odin for months is, “Loki_ Laufeyson _.”_

            Muninn stepped back onto the arm of the chair, muttering to himself.  “Tell your master that there will never be a reconciliation. That the fact that he yet lives is not through some weakness or sentimentality, but rather because I am playing a game longer and bigger than he can imagine, and he may yet have a part in it.” Loki leaned back in the chair and narrowed his eyes.  “So if I see either of you two again, I will break your scrawny feathered necks, understand?”

            They both squawked, unimpressed, but they took flight in a rush of beating wings and feathers, gliding through his rooms to the balcony beyond.  Loki closed his eyes and exhaled, long and low. _Laufeyson. Laufey’s son._

            As he let cold spread up his arms, to his neck and chest, he thought of the surprised look on Laufey’s face when he died.  The cold was followed by the prickly sensation of heat as his body temperature plummeted; the sensation was just as alien and terrifying as it had been the first time.  He forced his hands to be steady as he stood to pull off his surcoat and tunic and moved to the mirror on the far wall, breathing shallowly.  It took a long time for him to raise his gaze from his hands to the face in the mirror; he could only look at the image across from him for a few seconds before he got light headed. He closed his eyes and braced himself against the wall until the dizziness faded.

            _I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night._

            He opened his eyes and flinched away from the red eyes staring back at him, looking instead at the markings on his forehead, circular and symmetric.  Under his fingertips they were raised but smooth as they disappeared into his scalp. He traced his hairline down, still avoiding looking himself in the eye, stomach turning at the feel of cold, leathery skin. 

            Faint white lines on his hand caught his eye.  He examined them closer and followed the pattern of them up his forearms until he realized what they were.

            Scars.  Scars from a lifetime of combat.  Wounds that had vanished from his other skin had made their mark here, telling stories that he never wanted to remember.  He traced a single line on his left arm that went from wrist to elbow, a reminder of a time of desperation. Bite marks on his bicep lingered from his first bligesnipe hunt. The scar from Svartalfheim, still thick and discolored. He flinched and bile rose in his throat when he saw that his torso was almost more scars than skin, a tangled mass of tissue left by the Chitauris’ tender ministrations.  He remembered the feel of Stark’s hands on his skin and shuddered at the thought of Stark seeing the scars, feeling them, reading months of pain and misery and humiliation mapped out across his body.

            Closing his eyes, he struggled to calm his breathing.  When he opened them again, he found himself backed into a corner of the room with no idea how he got there, hands smearing blood everywhere. He looked for the source of the blood and panicked when he saw blue skin. _What if somebody sees_ he thought desperately and clawed at his arms, digging to find the Aesir skin underneath.  Pushing past the shock of pain, he tried to find where the Frost Giant ended and the Aesir began, but there was only black and blue, darkness all the way down, maybe to the bone-

_BZZZZ-BZZZZZ._ Loki jerked and gasped for air like a man drowning at the sound of his phone vibrating against the stone floor.   He gagged at the cold iron smell of blood and the slippery feel of it on his fingers before banishing it, fumbling for his phone with shaking hands and ignoring the wounds on his forearms as they slowly closed.

_I miss you.  I love you.  Please come home._

 

When the fire finally died, Tony just went to bed, too caught up in his thoughts to even concentrate on work.  Once there, though, he just stared at the ceiling until he forced himself to close his eyes and try to sleep, but his mind still raced, turning the phrase  _Frost Giant_ over and over in his thoughts.  He’d been laying there for at least an hour, tossing and turning, when he felt the bed dip. He froze, eyes still closed, pretending to be asleep even though he knew that Loki knew he was awake. He felt a little like someone encountering a wild animal, staying still and quiet to avoid startling Loki into flight as he slid between the sheets. Tony heard a long, tired exhale and felt Loki brush the bare skin of his back with careful fingertips; it was an ephemeral touch, but warmth spread out from the contact until he could feel his muscles relax, little by little.  Taking a chance, he rolled over, eyes still closed, and felt Loki tense, but just edged closer until he could tuck his face against Loki’s neck and throw a leg over his thigh, as if he could keep him there in bed through aggressive cuddling.  He grabbed Loki's hand and squeezed it tight, pressed his lips to the knuckles and tucked it into his chest, muffling the light from the arc reactor.  After a few moments, he felt Loki relax against him, and there were light touches against his face before they fell away again.  Tony resisted the temptation to open his eyes and forced his breathing to be deep and even until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki struggles to cope with being a Frost Giant, and Tony has a bonding moment with Thor where he figures out Loki's parentage.


	9. Ambush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is going a little stir crazy hanging out with the wrong Asgardian so, as a coping mechanism, he goes looking for things to blow up.

            The next morning, as he woke up leisurely, Tony stretched, long and satisfying, until his back popped and he fell back into the covers with relief. But when he rolled over to see the empty bed, his mood immediately soured.  He knew full goddamn well that he wasn’t dreaming when he felt Loki get into bed last night, but this morning he’d run away again. In a fit of petulance he threw Loki’s pillow across the room and stomped to the kitchen.

            “’Give him some space,’” Tony said in a high falsetto, slamming cabinets as he searched for the coffee grinder. “He literally has all of space, how much more can he need,” he continued in his own voice, dumping beans into the grinder and pushing the button. “’Exactly, Tony, he has all of that and he came back to you, didn’t he?’” He said in the falsetto again.  “Yeah, then he ran away again like a weasely little coward scared of his feelings.” “And who does that sound like, Tony? How many times did you tell me you would talk when you were damn well ready-“ he stopped and scowled because he’d actually made a good point.  The kettle started whistling so he turned off the stove and poured it into the French press, letting it steep.  “JARVIS, how is Pepper winning an argument with me when she isn’t even here?”

            “She’s a woman of great talent, sir.”

            “Yeah.” Tony leaned against the counter, head in his hands.  “She’d tell me to be patient, wouldn’t she?”

            “The probability of that is high, sir.”

            He dragged his fingers through his scalp before running them roughly over his face.  “Ok, I can do this. I can be an adult and not a whiny brat.” Then he turned and promptly stubbed his toe on Mjolnir.  “Ow, fuck! Goddammit, JARVIS, tell Thor to come get his hammer out of the middle of the kitchen!”

***

 _I miss you. I love you. Please come home._ Loki slouched on the throne, head resting on his fist, as he turned his phone over and over in his hand, occasionally stopping to reread Stark’s message.  He was unspeakably exhausted but the only semblance of rest he could get were the stolen nights with Stark; the sound of his breathing, the warmth of his skin, the glow of the arc reactor were all effective talismans against the storm in his head.  Until, of course, Stark began stirring and the fear of seeing an unwelcome speculation, or worse, knowledge in his eyes drove Loki away again. Shame at that fear slithered its way into the morass of anger, disgust, and self-loathing that coiled in his stomach.

            _I miss you. I love you. Please come home._ Come home.  When had Earth become  _home?_  The longer Loki sat on this beknighted throne the more he regretted ever ascending the dias in the first place.  To be fair, though, he'd never wanted the throne until he'd discovered why he couldn't have it. 

            The sound of the door startled Loki from his thoughts, and he had to slit his eyes against the brightness of the hall outside.  The seneschal seemed surprised to find someone sitting on the throne at this time of night.  Loki, hidden under a guise of Odin, merely cut his eyes over to the surprised official and grunted.  It was fortunate for Loki that Odin had never been a garrulous man.

            “I’m sorry to disturb you, my King, but there are reports that the Troll Lords are once again raiding the Vanir. Shall I send-“

            “No.” Loki stood.  “I will deal with it.” 

            “Now?” The official backed up quickly out of his way as Loki brushed past him.

            “Would there be a better time?” Loki said curtly.  He held his hand out for the report in the official’s hand as he strode towards the Bifrost, the official half-running to keep up.

            “Would Commander Tyr not be-“ The official stopped mid-sentence at the look in Loki’s eye. “As you say, Allfather. Will you be needing anything?”

            “No.”  Perhaps a little bit of bloodshed would make him feel better.

            

            It did not.  When he returned to Asgard he found that the brief but satisfying violence had done little to lighten his mood.  When he saw the new text from Stark his mood soured still further.  _So tonight’s the last hurrah before everyone in DC scurries home for the holidays. Are you coming?_

            Unbidden, Loki imagined it, the glittering lights and muted rush of a crowd of strangers, forced to make banal conversation in front of prying eyes as he and Stark both pretended Loki’s greatest fear hadn’t been laid bare.  Words would eventually fail them, and he’d turn to see Stark studying him as if trying to see the monster under Loki’s skin.  He’d seen that look on Thor’s face once and had wanted to claw the question out of Thor’s eyes with his bare hands.

            With a brief sharp shake of his head he opened a new text and wrote, _I need a favor._

            “What’s in it for me?”  Stephen leaned back in his chair and studied Loki over steepled fingers.  Loki looked existentially tired, like he hadn’t slept in days.  Stephen remembered seeing that tiredness in his own eyes before he found Kamar Taj and wondered what in the universe could make someone like Loki question his entire existence.

            Loki eyed him. “I was under the impression you considered Stark a friend.”

            Stephen scowled and waved his hand. “Of course, not that.  I mean, how are you going to make it worth my while to have the awkward conversation with Tony that his boyfriend is willing to talk to me but not to him?”  He smirked at the look on Loki’s face at the word _boyfriend_.

            “What do you want?” Loki asked warily.

            “Fifteen minutes alone with the mind gem.”

            “Five minutes supervised with the mind gem,” Loki countered.

            “Ten minutes but no interfering.”

            Loki rolled his eyes.  “Fine. Stark will have all the details of the event,” he said as he stood, picking a piece of lint off the arm of his suit coat.

            “By the way, we found the guy who’d been selling our secrets to SHIELD,” Stephen commented idly.  “Apparently having the ability to manipulate reality and travel the multiverse pales in comparison with the lure of the dice.”

            Loki snorted.  “If he was losing at the latter he must not have been very good at the former.”

            “True.”  Stephen studied his mentor as Loki turned away, seeing the lines of tension around his mouth.  “You know, cowardice doesn’t look good on you, Loki,” Stephen said to his back as he went to the door.  He could see Loki’s shoulders tighten and the press of his fingers was probably leaving dents on the doorknob, but he didn’t turn around. 

            “Just be sure you take the time gem,” was all he said as he left.

***

            “Thor, I know Jane at least must have said something to you about cleaning up after yourself,” Tony said as he took in the disaster area that was his living room.  Thor had set up camp there and, according to JARVIS, was binge watching Viking documentaries and throwing food at the screen in protest while Tony was holed up in the lab.  “Cuz we don’t have a maid, you know.”

            Thor looked around as if just realizing he'd made a mess.  “No? Why not? We should get one, I have gold-“

            “No, Thor, it’s not about the gold, I have gold too.  I don’t like people I don’t know in my personal space,” he said, gesturing widely.  “Because of terrorists and Hydra and, I don’t know, evil shapeshifters or whatever.  So I clean up after myself and once in a while I let someone in here to disinfect everything. But this, here –“ Tony pointed to the popcorn littering the floor in front of the TV, “is how we get ants.  And the first time I find an ant in one of my suits, I’m dumping a whole colony in your bed.”

            In the end they compromised; Thor cleaned up his dishes while Tony retrieved the shop vac and cleaned up the food and crumbs.  Tony was feeling pretty sanguine about things until he went into the kitchen and realized that Thor had just dumped the dishes in the sink, not actually washed them.  He hung his head and sighed as he put them in the dishwasher.  His phone buzzed in his back pocket and he dried his hands and took it out. _What time is the event tonight?_ Stephen wrote. _Loki asked me to watch your back because he couldn’t make it._

            Tony leaned against the counter and read and reread the message, sighing a little in disappointment.  _It’s at 9_ , he wrote back, after a while. _Just meet me here at the Tower._

            Stephen just sent back a thumbs up emoji.

            _Did you tell Loki he was being a dick for not telling me himself?_

            _Yes. He was looking a bit rough around the edges when he came by_

            Tony ignored that politely vague invitation to talk about it and deliberately left his phone in the kitchen to squeeze in a few more hours in the lab.  The nervous awareness that he didn’t have his phone on him was better than the depressing knowledge that Loki was avoiding contacting him on it. 

           

            When Stephen met him a few hours later, Tony was trying to fasten his cufflinks – one of many things he’d gotten out of practice with while having Loki around – and Thor was on the couch wearing just a pair of boxers and an Asgardian surcoat, intently watching the _Vikings_ show on History Channel.  When he noticed the portal appearing in the living room, Thor paused it and stood, hand automatically reaching for Mjolnir.

            “No worries, big guy, it’s a friend. Hey, Stephen,” Tony greeted as Stephen stepped through the portal.  “The new suit looks good on you.”  He’d finally gotten tired of seeing Stephen in the same suit every time he dragged him to a fancy dress affair, so Tony had sent his tailor to Stephen’s house one Saturday with a three suit minimum and a five thousand dollar budget.

            “It does, doesn’t it,” Stephen preened, adjusting his coat and squaring his shoulders. "Thank you."

            “Stephen, this is Thor, Loki’s brother,” Tony said.  Thor came up beside him and bowed his head politely.  “Thor, this is Dr. Stephen Strange, Loki’s…” Tony squinted at Stephen while he looked for the right word. “Former nemesis? Student?”

            “Protégé,” Stephen supplied, holding out his hand and successfully ignoring the fact that Thor was basically in his underwear.

            Thor gave it a brief shake and eyed him speculatively. “I did not know Loki was teaching. Or even that he had an interest in doing so.”

            “All it took was Stephen trying to kick him off the planet a couple of times and I guess Loki took pity on him,” Tony said, dodging when Stephen scowled and tried to kick him in the ankle.

            But that made Thor look at him with a new consideration.  “Then I am impressed that you are still alive, Dr. Stephen Strange.  Loki must have seen something very promising in you, for he does not well tolerate fools.”

            Tony smiled when he saw the look on Stephen’s face that said he was trying to figure out if he’d just been insulted and clapped Thor on the back. “Well, sorry you don’t feel like socializing, Thor, but we should get going.  Stephen, will you do the honors?”

            “Sure.”  Stephen slipped something onto his hand and moved to an open part of the room.  “Where to?”

            Tony grimaced. “Trump Tower.”

            “Seriously? Eww.” But Stephen started tracing a circle in the air and before long there was a circle of gold-orange sparks in his living room.  Thor studied it curiously.

            “Yeah, I know, I know.  I didn’t set this one up, I’m just attending. Tell JARVIS to call me if you need anything, Thor,” Tony said as they walked through the portal and emerged in some out of the way corner of the tower.  What he missed in dramatic entrances teleporting made up for in not having to sit in traffic; besides, he didn’t really want his name linked with Trump Tower any more than necessary.

            They got some drinks and circled the room a couple of times, scouting the crowd, before finding a quiet spot to themselves where Tony could still watch the room. “So, how is Steve’s murderbot boyfriend doing?”

            “Oh, right!” Stephen took his cell phone out and started pulling up pictures.  “Responding well to treatment for all the trauma to the brain.  Epilepsy, blackouts, memory loss.  It was all pretty ugly; his brain scans were like nothing I've ever seen. I’ve been trying to get them to come see you so you can take a look at this arm of his, but Steve says that you are probably under surveillance by Hydra so even being in Manhattan feels too close.  I’m surprised you call James Steve’s boyfriend, though, because I was under the impression that was a secret.”

            Tony froze as he reached out a hand to look at the pictures of Bucky’s arm on Stephen’s phone. “What?”

            “What?” Stephen glanced up and saw the surprise on Tony’s face. “Oh, shit. I mean-“

            “Oh, shit indeed," Tony said gleefully over Stephen's groan. "Steve Rogers has a boyfriend. No, no – _Captain America_ has a boyfriend _._ ”  Tony pulled out his cell phone. “This is the best day ever.  Is this still a good number for him?”

            Stephen grabbed the phone and held it over his head so that Tony couldn’t reach it, unfazed by Tony’s scowl.  “Do _not_ text Steve.  He’ll know that I’m the one you found out from, and he barely trusts me as it is.”

            “Gimme my phone back.”  Tony refused to try to jump for it, he'd played that game enough in boarding school.

            “No.”

            “Stephen," Tony said in his most serious voice, "I will give you a thousand dollars for you to give me my phone right now.”

            “Really?” Stephen said in surprise, and his arm dropped just enough. 

            “Hell no, gimme my phone.” Tony jumped and snatched his cell phone, dodging Stephen by moving to the other side of a table. “If he gives you a hard time about it, I’ll buy you a bottle of Glenfiddich,” he said as he started texting.   _Hey Steve, how are you enjoying that Fist of Hydra?_ He hit send with an evil chuckle. _That_ was for giving him a hard time about working with Loki, much less the shit he would have gotten if Steve knew they were sleeping together.

            Stephen just shook his head in resignation and put his hands in his pockets. “Are you going to tell me why Loki thought I should bring the Eye of Agamotto with me tonight?  This little gala seems downright…banal,” He said, gesturing at the muted orchestra and the people milling about desultorily.

            “Well, the last time was a little more exciting.  Some kind of…I don’t know what to call her, sorceress I guess, moseyed up and tried to take over my mind.” Tony took a stout swallow of his drink at the memory.  “Loki stopped her but then she vanished.  Loki thought there were two of them but he didn’t elaborate at the time.  Guess he was afraid they would try again tonight.”

            Stephen’s eyes were drawn to his wrist when Tony lifted his drink.  He reached out with a fingertip and pushed Tony’s sleeve up to look at the bracelet Loki gave him.  He whistled, long and low, as he studied it.  “I take it Loki gave you that? Was it some sort of special occasion? An anniversary?”

            “Um, ‘congratulations for surviving another Hydra attempt on your life’?” Tony ran his fingers over the slightly embossed pattern before pulling his sleeve back down. Though now that Stephen mentioned it, Tony realized that it had almost been a whole year since Loki had first showed up in his living room, prickly with menace and evasive mystery.  He sighed and took another swallow of whiskey.

            “That’s an impressive bit of spell work.  What does it do?”

            “I’ll show you later.” Stephen made a thoughtful noise and turned back to the crowd.  Tony didn’t know if he was disappointed or not when absolutely nothing of note happened for the rest of the night. When he reported as much to Maria, she only nodded in resignation.  “I feared as much.  We’re going to need to change our tactics.  Get some rest, I’ll be in touch.”

***

 _Call me plz I need your help_ , Tony texted Rhodey when Thor turned his back to pick out a movie from JARVIS’s near universal database.  “Sure, Thor, I’d love to do another movie marathon with you, let me just – oh! I gotta take this call first.” He gestured with his phone, which was ringing obnoxiously. “Hey, Rhodey! Yeah, everything’s going great here,” he smiled and waved at Thor while walking to the balcony. “What am I doing? Just hanging out with Thor again.” He closed the door to the balcony and walked to the far side.  “Rhodey, you have to save me, Thor is driving me crazy,” he hissed into the phone.  “Where are you? What are you doing? Can I come?”

            Rhodey laughed, entirely too amused at Tony’s desperation.  “Sorry, Tony, but right now I’m in Arizona, giving a talk to some Air Force drone operators out here.  I’ll be back tomorrow though if you’d like to get together.”

            “Yes, please, for the love of God.”

            “What’s he doing that’s getting on your nerves?”

            “Well, let’s see.  He seems constitutionally unable to clean up after himself, he has no other friends on Earth, apparently, so he’s constantly bugging me to hang out while commenting on how ‘cute’ or ‘quaint’ human activities are, he comes into the lab and touches _everything-_ “

            “Ok, ok, I get it.  I’ll come give you a break tomorrow, alright? I’ll let you know when I’m back in DC.”

            “Alright, bye Rhodey.” Tony ended the call and hung his head with a sigh.  The phone in his hand buzzed and he opened his text messages hopefully.  Pepper had written  _How are you doing?_   which was kind, thoughtful, but not helpful at all. 

 _Terrible,_ he wrote back. _Thor is driving me crazy and Loki is avoiding me. I don’t suppose you have a board meeting I could go to, or another terrorist group to kidnap me? Preferably in the next five minutes._

 _LOL._   Tony shook his head; Pepper was probably one of the few people that used that when she actually did laugh out loud. _Be patient.  Thor is a friend going through a hard time right now, and clearly Loki’s got like, 1000 years’ worth of psychoses to work through._

 _Ugh. FINE._  Tony went back inside and resigned himself to a Lord of the Rings marathon with Thor providing commentary on everything from weapons to tactics to  _Well, the Elves on Alfheim…_

 

 _Your brother has been moping on my couch for a week but I’m already starting to see why you want to kill him sometimes._ Tony managed to avoid Thor this morning by getting up early and going down to the gym, trying to work out some of his frustration from when he’d gone to get something to eat for breakfast and found that Thor had cleaned them out of everything edible besides condiments. But not coffee, thank God, or Tony would have been knocking on Thor’s door in an Iron Man suit.

 “What’s this?”  Tony tried not to groan when Thor wandered into the gym in the middle of Tony’s set, watching with interest as he did two more reps with the barbell before setting it down with a clang. At least this time Thor was wearing a shirt; having him hang out around the tower just wearing boxer shorts all the time was enough to give a normal human an inferiority complex.

“It’s a gym,” Tony said, chugging some water.  “For exercising.”

“Exercising,” Thor repeated, wandering around the room and examining some of the machines with interest.

“Yeah.  You pick up heavy things, put them back down, do a little running, whatever.”  Tony moved to the corner of the room with the pull up bar and stared at it tiredly.  It was a lot harder to be motivated to work out without Loki to keep him company or to, you know, appreciate his efforts.

In the mirror, he saw Thor pick up a dumbbell.  Then he picked up the whole rack and made a curious sound as he sat it back down. “We don’t have these on Asgard.”

“Of course you don’t, you’re probably born with a six pack,” Tony muttered under his breath, still staring down the pull up bar. “So what are your plans from here on out, Thor?  Any thoughts about your future?”

“In truth, I do not know.  All my life I have been a warrior in the service of Asgard, and lately I pledged my efforts to defend Earth.  Unfortunately, Earth is not often in need of warriors of my caliber, so.” Thor shrugged.  “I suppose I will eventually ask if Asgard’s king might have need of me.  Have you spoken with him recently?”

“Nope,” Tony answered flatly.  The only texts he could get Loki to answer to were the ones about stupid stuff, like the thing about making a fire and what color scheme he wanted for the Destroyer.  Just thinking about it was not putting Tony in any more of a mood to do pull ups; instead, his hands were starting to itch for the sledgehammer and the cathartic release of destroying something. 

Thor made a noncommittal sound, still examining all of Tony’s workout equipment.  “Loki has always had his moods.”

Tony snorted.  “Just out of curiosity, have you ever said that to his face?”

Thor laughed and met Tony's eyes in the mirror.  “Only if I was in the mood for some exercise.”

 

Two days later Tony was waiting with, if not patience, then a reasonable facsimile of it when he saw his salvation walk through the door of the restaurant. “Thank God for you, Rhodey,” Tony pulled him into a big hug and gave him a loud smacking kiss on the cheek.

“Naturally,” he said, returning Tony’s squeeze with a clap on the back. “Now what the hell is going on with you that you are here _early?_ ”

“Was I?” Tony looked at his watch like he hadn’t been sitting here for forty-five minutes just to get away from Thor. “I guess the flight took less time than I thought,” he said as he sat back down.

“Yeah, right.” Rhodey rolled his eyes as he pulled his chair out with a loud scrape.  “Thor irritating you that much?”

“Rhodey, it’s _terrible_.” Tony knew he was probably being ridiculous, but it didn’t help that every time he saw Thor he was just reminded of Loki, and he ached with missing him. This morning he had woken up to find the sheets still warm from Loki's body and he’d almost cried.  Then he’d masturbated and almost cried again when he’d realized that he was going to have to clean up his own mess because Loki wasn’t there to do it for him.

Ok, so he was _definitely_ being ridiculous.  Tony sighed but didn’t feel any less sorry for himself.

“Come on, it can’t be so bad,” Rhodey said, patting him on the back sympathetically.  “Remember that time when you went off to fight an alien army without your good ol’ pal Rhodey to watch your back? Now _that_ was a hot mess.”

Tony groaned and banged his head on the table. “I get it, I get it, next time I have advance notice of alien armies I’ll call you first. Give it up already, it’s been a _year._ ”

“Well, they always say that repetition is key when you are training-“

“ANYway,” Tony said loudly, talking over him, “I was under the impression that War Machine was booked for missions for, like, decades. You probably had to blow off some important meeting to come eat with me, didn’t you?”

Rhodey shrugged and picked up the menu. “It wouldn’t be the Pentagon if there weren’t meetings every day, but it’s not a big deal. Also, you know it’s Iron Patriot now.”

“I will never call you Iron Patriot, it’s War Machine forever.” Tony leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and eyed Rhodey speculatively.  “No big deal, eh? You’re hiding something.”

“No, I’m not,” Rhodey said.  “Have you had the crab cakes here?”

Tony let the legs of his chair hit the floor with a loud thud and gasped theatrically. “James Rupert Rhodes. Are you getting married?”

The confused look on his face as he stared at Tony over the menu was too genuine to be faked. “What? God no.”

“That better be a no, since I don’t even know if you’re dating anyone.” Tony leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, studying his friend intently. Rhodey was just as intently trying to study the menu. “Are you getting a promotion? It would be to general, right? Trading your little birdie for a gold star?”

Rhodey stiffened. Ha. Nailed it. “No-“ he tried to protest, but Tony talked over him.

“General Rhodes. Has a nice ring to it. What is it, Major General? Is that a thing?”

“Yes, Major General is a thing but it would be Brigadier General,” Rhodey said. “And it’s not a sure thing, my panel is coming up soon-“

“I think I can make a few calls,” Tony said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, dodging Rhodey’s arms as he tried to snatch the phone out of his hands.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the server start to approach and then take a hard left as he saw them fighting.

 “Tony, I swear to God, do NOT-“

Tony slapped at Rhodey’s hands, trying to finish his text.  “Calm down, calm down, I’m not calling anyone, I’m just texting Pepper the good news so she can send you a gift basket or something.”

“Oh, ok.  Yeah, she’s nice like that.” Appeased, Rhodey sat back in his chair, looking around the room to wave the server back over. “Speaking of marriage, have you found someone to settle down with? I haven’t seen you on the scandal rags lately.”

Tony smiled to himself when he read Pepper’s excited text back. “Yeah, no.  I doubt marriage is in my cards anytime soon,” he said distractedly as he typed back, and didn’t notice Rhodey’s suddenly alert, narrow-eyed look.

“What does that mean?”

The suspicious note in his voice made Tony look up. “What does what mean?”

“Any other time the word marriage has ever come up in conversation there’s usually hysterical laughter and some version of ‘hell no, Rhodey.’ This time was different.”

“Don’t try to project your-“ Tony started to protest guiltily but stopped when Rhodey pointed at him accusingly.

“You’re seeing someone.”

Tony tried really hard to make himself deny it but this was _Rhodey_ , so he just said “Um…it’s complicated?” and hoped his friend would drop it.

Fat chance of that. “Yeah, it always is with you, isn’t it.  Who is it?” Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the server came over to take their orders, but as soon as he’d walked away Rhodey pinned him with another look. “Well?”

“It’s…a man,” Tony hedged.

Rhodey rolled his eyes.  “Is that why you’re being so dodgy about it? That’s hardly a big reveal, remember I was there when you realized you were bi.”

Tony winced a little at the reminder.  Sophomore year in college Tony had climbed into Rhodey’s lap and started making out with him, only to be firmly but kindly told that Rhodey didn’t swing that way, thank you for the compliment. He shuffled his feet and fidgeted guiltily as Rhodey watched him, trying to figure out the best way to tell him about Loki. He opened his mouth but Rhodey stopped him by holding up a finger.

“You know what, hold that thought for a moment. I can tell this is going to be a doozy and I’d like to have my drink first.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Thankfully the server was fast, so Tony broke the news as Rhodey took his first sip.  Rhodey coughed, almost choking on his beer.  He stared at Tony for a long moment, gauging his seriousness, and then turned to wave the server back over.  “I’m going to need something a lot stronger,” he said.  “How about a whiskey, double, on the rocks.”  When the server nodded and disappeared, Rhodey took another long drink of his beer before pushing it aside and resting his elbows on the table.  “Alright Tony, lemme hear it from the top.”

***

            Tony was staring at another sink full of dirty dishes when broke down and called Maria. “Please, please tell me you guys have something I can blow up,” he asked as soon as Maria picked up.  “I’m going crazy here.”

            “Your work is too important for us to assign you elsewhere, Tony,” she said, then pulled away from the phone to tell someone to leave something on the edge of her desk.

            “Congress is actually in session so everyone who is anyone is down in DC right now, and besides, I don’t need reassignment, I just need like, one mission.  I’m really jonesing here, man, you gotta have something for me.  One little Hydra base?  Terrorist encampment?  Thor’s here, he could use something to do, too,” Tony wheedled. “Don’t make me beg.  My next option is asking Rhodey.”

            Maria sighed.  “I’ll check if I have anything worth your time.”

            “It doesn’t have to be worth my time,” Tony said quickly. “I mean, really, anything will do.  At this point I’d be willing to hand out parking tickets if it would just give Thor something to do.”

            “I get it, Tony, I’ll let you know.”

            “Thank you so much, Maria, you’re a lifesaver,” he said, but he was talking to dead air.

            The next day Maria came through. Tony got an email on the secure server with several mission briefings attached, all Hydra locations in the Caucuses. He grinned and downloaded them to his tablet while JARVIS prepped the Quinjet. “Thor! Get dressed, we’ve got work to do!”

            The first location, a Soviet munitions factory that had, after the end of the Cold War, gotten repurposed into a Hydra munitions factory, was almost textbook simple. Tony went in first, subdued the workers and shuffled them into the waiting arms of the SHIELD mop-up crew while Thor engaged in some therapeutic controlled demolition. 

            The second was a research facility that had gotten its hands on some Chitauri corpses and was conducting some cellular biology research; Tony scanned the contents of their computers but it was too early to even know if they were planning on using it for weapons research or genetic experiments.  This time the SHIELD backup had the chance to conduct some forensic examinations and take samples before Thor and Tony turned the building into rubble. 

            The celebration that night was epic enough that Tony was nursing a headache as they scoped out the third location in early predawn. The intel said that it was a foreign fighter facilitation hub supplying bodies for the various brush wars and terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, and recent reports suggest that the Hydra entrepreneurs had branched out into human trafficking.  Right now the base seemed unusually quiet, but then, that’s why they were doing this before dawn, for the element of surprise or something. When Tony chugged the rest of his coffee and gave them the signal, the SHIELD operatives fanned out through the trees to establish a perimeter while Tony and Thor went in through the front.

            Figuratively speaking, of course.  Thor went through the front but Stark went through the roof, barreling down into a room that SHIELD satellite analysis suggested was probably a barracks room but turned out to be, of all things, a pool, emptied of water and currently being used as a trash dump.  At this point Tony figured that he’d lost the element of surprise so he started stomping through hallways and waited for people to attack him.

            “Stark, I have found the captives,” Tony heard through his communicator.  “Some of these women seem drugged, and others are quite ill.”

            “Alright, start evacuating,” Tony said absently, scanning a new room as he tried to find the operations center for this alleged base.  If there were trafficked women here, then the intel couldn’t be all bad, but where were the fighters?  “I’m still looking for some bad guys to shoot.”

            And just to prove that he wasn’t the only one who liked to wait for a good entrance, that was when the first shot pinged off his helmet. Without prompting his suit zeroed in on the shooter and fired back, the high caliber bullet going through the wall the shooter was using for concealment.

            More bullets pinged off his backplate and he realized without surprise that he was surrounded.  “If you guys want to surrender, now would be a good time,” he announced, raising the volume on his speakers to be heard over the gunfire.  “No? That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” and his suit vibrated minutely as his HUD and a precisely aimed pulse barrage cleared out the hostiles.

            “I surrender!” Tony heard unexpectedly, and around the doorway a woman with tied back blonde hair approached, hands in the air. He raised his hands, repulsors ready, but the HUD quickly scanned her and noted the presence of body armor but no further weapons.  The lower leg of her left pants let was stained red and she was leaving bloody footprints as she walked hesitantly towards Tony.  “Look, I was ok with the fighters and stuff, they’re all so eager to kill themselves, but then they brought the women in and I don’t think I can do this anymore.”  Tony took a step back warily as she approached and she stopped suddenly, looking terrified. “I don’t know how this works, do you like, arrest me now or something?” She held her hands out in front of her.

            “Ok, well, I gotta confess, this has never happened before,” Tony said.  “How about you tell me how many-“

            Suddenly the woman lunged and her hands started glowing red, heat distorting the air around them.  Tony threw himself backwards but he was a moment too slow and she was a step too close.  Tony’s HUD went crazy, indicators blinking all over as the woman’s red hot hands started melting through his armor. 

            In desperation Tony punched her in the face but as soon as he touched her he could feel the heat through his gauntlets almost immediately.  He tried to shoot her, but he couldn't get a good angle; the suit wasn't really made for hand-to-hand combat.

            “Sir, suit integrity is at 35%...31%...27%-“

            “I get it, thanks JARVIS!” Tony struggled to break her grip but her fingers had curled into the metal like it was clay and she was ripping pieces off left and right, features distorted into a hateful snarl. “Unibeam, _now!_ ”

            The unibeam blasted a hole through the woman’s chest and she finally went down, but a new wave of hostiles had started firing, bullets sinking into the hot metal instead of bouncing off with reassuring pings.  A lucky bullet hit a hydraulic line and Tony felt the whole right side of the suit go down with a rush of cold fluid down his leg.

            Tony activated the emergency escape just as the HUD flickered and died, diving out of his suit and rolling for the nearest cover.  He ducked and covered his head before he realized that the agents had stopped shooting. He sat up cautiously, raising his head quickly to check the door.  The men were still there but were talking to each other in urgent tones, gesturing at something in the room.  Confused, Tony looked around to see why they had stopped shooting and froze when he saw the large blue barrels right behind him.  The barrels, each big enough to hold a body or two, were connected to each other with a couple of wires, and at the top of each was a brick of a grayish, clay looking substance that Tony immediately recognized as SemTex.  Which meant that the barrels were probably full of good old fashioned homemade explosive, and that even if that was the only such setup in the building – unlikely - it was more enough to reduce everything to rubble.  There was no convenient clock or blinking light on the bomb, only a box on top that he recognized as a crude signal receiver.

            Sure as shit explained why they stop shooting at him. “Shit shit shit-“ Tony squeezed his eyes tight and grabbed the bracelet on his wrist, thinking _merchant of death merchant of death_ with enough fervor to count as a prayer.  The seconds felt like minutes as the light glowed and the suit resolved itself around him until he was finally able to get back on the comms.

            “Thor! Everyone out, now, it’s a trap! The whole building is rigged to blow!”  Re-armored, he barreled through the men guarding the door, heading back down to where Thor reported finding the women. “JARVIS, can you find out what frequency that receiver is set to so we can block it?”

            “Not without triggering it, sir.  It’s a short-wave receiver so the detonator is li-“

            _Likely in the building,_ was Tony’s last thought as the shockwave from the explosion through him through a stairwell and into the trees outside, the sudden sideways acceleration making him black out.

            He came to with a headache that was redoubled in force and a sharp pain in his back that did not bode well.  “JARVIS-“

            “Suit integrity is at 95% sir.  You have multiple contusions, possible concussion, and likely a few cracked ribs.” Looking at the trail of destruction he’d made as he’d been thrown through the forest, he figured he was lucky that was all he’d gotten.  Through the trees a fire was sending greasy smoke into the sky and ashes were already starting to flutter towards the ground.

            “Thor? Status report,” he said as he climbed to his feet and set off towards the fire.

            “Stark!” Thor answered with relief. “I am well, where are you?”

            “Right behind you.”  Tony landed next to Thor and lifted his face mask. Thor’s armor was blackened in places, his cape scorched.  Even his hair and beard looked singed. “Were you caught in it?”

            “Aye.  I was trying to warn the others inside.”

            “And?”

            Thor only shook his head. A handful of the SHIELD backup were standing a short distance away.  One was on the phone, presumably calling in more back up; a few were standing around staring blankly at the fire, clearly in shock; and one or two were trying to take care of the women they’d managed to get outside before the building blew.

            “How many-“ Tony stopped and had to pace for a minute before he could get his voice under control. “How many were still in there?”

            “Perhaps four agents of SHIELD.  As for the women…” Thor shook his head again, voice hard, refusing to look at Tony.  “Too many to count. Dozens.”

            “Right. Dozens.” Tony took off his helmet. “Pardon me a moment.”  He stepped back towards the tree line and threw up, violently, each heave sending stabbing pain through his head and back.  Eventually he was just coughing and spitting bile, and would have paid a million dollars for a bottle of water. He rejoined Thor, who was still staring at the fire.  “So, that was a trap.”

            “Aye.”  They stood there in silence as the building burned.  Eventually local police came roaring up, the sirens like knives until Tony put his helmet back on to block the sound.  Thor conversed with them, defusing the situation as a helicopter from the nearest US military base landed a ways away.  All in all, it was a few hours before he and Thor could escape to the Quinjet.  The other missions had obviously been put on hold so Maria curtly ordered them to return home before she hung up.

            They were halfway over the Atlantic when Fury called. “Tony, Thor.  You guys ok?”

            Tony was reclining on one of the bench seats waiting for the industrial strength painkiller to kick in so he could think.  “We’re alive, limbs intact.”

            “Stark was injured,” Thor supplied, ignoring the dirty look Tony gave him.  He’d been the one to look at Tony’s back and confirm that he had a cracked rib and some spectacular bruising.

            “What happened?”

            “It was a trap,” Tony said tiredly.  “Once we got there, we found a roomful of civilians, presumably the trafficking victims, and one of those Extremis types, remember the ones from Miami?  Once we got in and started evacuating…boom.”  It suddenly occurred to him that if it hadn’t been for Loki’s gift and the Oh Shit Suit, he would have died.  And he wouldn’t have been able to get the warning out and save what few he had.  The thought made him desperately want to see Loki, to feel his arms around him so he could let go and fall to pieces, but he hadn’t heard from him for almost a week.

            Fury must have heard something in his voice because he was being uncharacteristically nice.  “Get some rest when you get home.  We’ll talk tomorrow.”

            Tony took that to mean that some serious shit had probably hit the fan, but honestly at this point he couldn’t bring himself to care. He rolled carefully onto his side and tried not to think about the blackened corpses that police were dragging out of the ruined building as they’d left.

 

            Loki had no idea how long he had been sitting in Odin’s chamber, watching the hypnotic rise and fall of the old man’s chest and rolling Gungnir idly between his palms.  Huninn and Muginn were roosting high up in the rafters of the room, muttering sleepily; the rest of the palace had retired hours ago after a feast celebrating the first class of soldiers to be inducted into Asgard’s army since the disastrous raid by the Dark Elves. The whole ordeal had been torture.  Loki’d had to stay for the whole thing and even give a speech.

            He sensed a message coming in on his phone and he pulled out of the hidden pocket of spacetime. _LOKI- TONY NEEDS YOU. GO NOW._  Somehow he had missed several calls from Pepper and even one from Stark. Frowning, he banished Gungnir absently as he stepped sideways to the Tower, realizing immediately that Stark wasn’t there. 

            “Loki?”  In his distraction and worry Loki hadn’t even noticed that he’d appeared right in front of Thor.  “What-?”

            “Where is Stark?” Loki interrupted, already casting his thoughts out in search of Stark’s unique mental signature.

            “I don’t-“

            “Then you are useless, aren’t you?” he snarled, and left.

            He emerged from the dark paths in a home he didn’t recognize, one that was still and silent from years of abandonment. In front of him, Stark came to a stop when he saw Loki leaning against the door to the veranda, backlit by the light of the full moon outside.  He swayed a little and took a long pull of a bottle of alcohol he had in one hand.  “Are you another one of my ghosts?”

            “No, Stark, I’m here.”  Loki took a step forward but hesitated when Stark made no move towards him.

            “Yeah, but are you _really_ here, or just like, physically here?”

            Loki frowned, confused. “I’m…really here.”

            “If you say so.” He walked away, leaving Loki to follow Stark on his apparently random wanderings through this giant, empty house.

            “What are you doing?”

            “So you care now?" Loki pressed his lips tight at the justified bite in Stark's voice.  "Some would say I’m getting drunk.  Pepper and her raft of therapists would say that I’m punishing myself by engaging in toxic behavior.  But I say, why can’t it be both?”  He said with a shrug and another swallow.  Loki followed him around the house, trying to find a pattern in what Stark stopped to look at and what he avoided.

            He stopped and turned so suddenly that Loki almost ran into him, but Stark didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, remember all those jokes about me being a superhero and you being a supervillain?” he said as he pulled out his phone.  “Check out all these people I saved today.”  Looking down, Loki saw Stark swiping past picture after picture of bodies that had been badly burned. With a harsh exhale he glanced up and saw the bleak desolation in Stark’s eyes.  Stark  didn’t fight when Loki took the phone out of his hands, he only took another drink from the bottle he’d had cradled in his elbow as he kept walking.

           "What-"

           "I don't want to talk about it," Stark cut him off.  Loki bit his tongue and continued to pace with Stark.  Eventually they stopped in front of what appeared to be a family picture; Loki had no idea how old Stark was, human ages being what they were, but he was clearly a child, only a little over waist high compared to the man he was standing next to.  Stark tapped it with his finger and it tilted a little on the wall. “In other news, remember the red-head? The one who, you know, did the mind fuck,” Stark gestured around his head with the hand holding the bottle. “I found her. Name’s Wanda Maximoff, her brother’s Pietro.” He took a swallow, still staring at the photo.  “After I killed their parents in Sokovia, they bounced around Eastern Europe before joining Hydra about a year ago.”

            “ _You_ killed-“

            “Stark Industries was raking it in hand over fist after the end of the Cold War.  While I was doing the wine, women, and song thing Obie was selling my missiles to anyone and everyone.”  Stark’s laugh was hollow and humorless.  “Merchant of Death. DaVinci of Destruction. My father makes his fortune off of World War II and the Cold War, and is a hero; I try to make things better but I guess I’ll always be a murderer.” He reached out and kept tipping the photo until it fell on the floor.  Loki reached out to touch his shoulder but Stark had already turned away, so his fingers only brushed his sleeve.

            They came to a room dominated by a piano; Tony had already come in here once tonight, judging from the dust cloth that had been dragged onto the floor.  Loki watched the line of Stark’s throat move as he took another swallow of what smelled like scotch, eyes trailing down to the pale V of his chest that he could see from where Stark had partially unbuttoned his shirt.   Loki ached to slide his hands inside that gap, to replace the bottle with his lips and chase the taste of scotch from Stark’s mouth.  He wanted to bring the light back to Stark’s eyes, but for the first time since the first time he didn’t know if his touch would be welcome.  So he clasped his hands behind his back and said nothing.

             “This is the last place I saw them alive,” Stark said, after a long silence.  “We were fighting, of course. Like always.  Dad was disappointed, I was defensive, and Mom was trying to mediate.”  He put the bottle down on top of the piano and sat on the bench.  When he started to play his movements were amazing precise, given how unsteady his gait was; the music was sad and slow, of course, but mostly Loki was struck by the fact that he hadn’t even known that Stark could play.

            Stark turned his head, perhaps to see if Loki was still there, and in a shaft of moonlight Loki saw the tears coursing down his face.  He moved away from the door to come up behind Stark, putting his hand on his shoulder, at first hesitantly and then more firmly when Stark didn’t move away, and pulled him to his feet.

            “May I?” Loki asked softly, fingertips trailing over Stark’s wet cheeks.  Stark shrugged, leaning his head slightly into Loki’s touch, and took another drink.   Around them, the room shimmered until it was lit by soft sunlight, and a woman wearing a pale blue suit and pearls appeared beside them at the piano, singing softly.

            “What-“ Loki caught the bottle as it fell from Stark’s suddenly nerveless fingers.

            “This is the memory that pains you, yes?” Stark swallowed thickly and rubbed a hand over his eyes, nodding shortly.  “Do it right this time.  Say the things you didn’t before, even though it’s too late.”  Maybe this would help him more than it had ever helped Loki, would purge Stark’s wound instead of pouring salt into it.  He pressed a kiss to Stark’s temple and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

            It wasn’t very long before Stark came staggering out of the room, dazed.  Loki caught him as he fell back against the wall and they slid down to the floor together. Stark curled into him, sobbing and shaking; Loki held him close, feeling like something was tearing in his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Loki whispered against his hair.  He held him until Stark stopped shaking, until his breaths weren’t ragged and hard-fought.  

            Stark sat up gingerly, swiping the back of his hand over his cheeks, and turned until he could tuck his head against Loki's neck.  He sighed, breath hot against Loki's collarbone.  "Let's go home, Loki."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for a quick chapter update! Boo because it will probably take me a while to do the next one. Bear with me because the next chapter is a doozy, but we are getting close to the finish.


	10. Divide and Conquer

            When they arrived in Stark’s bedroom at the Tower, Loki managed to coax him into standing so that they could undress, which really meant that Stark was leaning against him with bone deep exhaustion as Loki undressed him and helped him fall into bed.  

            “You saved my life today,” Stark slurred sleepily into his pillow, waving his left arm with the bracelet on it, eyes already drifting closed.  “The last suit was toast, there was one of those fire women from last year.  Melted right through it.”

            Loki made an attentive hmm, thoughts far away.  _I should have been there_. His breath hitched in his chest when he saw the discoloration and swelling on Stark’s back, when he felt Stark tense beneath him when he touched the tender ribs. _How many times will he face danger without me by his side?_ He forced his hands to be steady as they swept over Stark’s skin, determined to discover every bruise and cut, even if he did not have the skills to heal them.  If Stark had been killed because Loki had let his fear and shame keep him from being at his side…he rested his forehead where Stark’s neck and shoulder join, breathing deep the scent of soap and under that, smoke and ash, with the sharp smell of grease that always lingered. As he felt Stark’s muscles relax into sleep he murmured the words in Asgardian that he couldn’t say in English:

_I love you._

_I missed you._

_I am home, and I won’t leave you again._

            Loki didn’t sleep much that night; Stark fell asleep quickly but he did not rest well. More than once Loki soothed him with soft words and gentle touches out of nightmares that had him jerking violently and sweating.  Close to dawn, however, whatever demons had driven Stark to the bottle seemed to cease their torments, because Loki was eventually able to fall asleep to Stark’s deep, rhythmic breathing. He woke when Stark shifted, and though his eyes were closed, Loki knew he was awake. Stark sighed and rolled over, the dim light of the morning seeping in around the curtains and partially obscuring the glow of the arc reactor.

            After a moment, Stark’s hand slid across the space between them and encircled his wrist. Loki looked up, startled, to see Stark’s eyes steady on his. “I know why you wanted to destroy the Chitauri.  It wasn’t to protect Earth or to get revenge; or at least, it wasn’t just that.  It was because they broke you, humiliated you, and by killing them you thought you could make all of it go away.  But you can’t.” He tugged Loki’s hand to cover the arc reactor and the web of scars there.  “You will carry those scars whether you want to or not.  But in the end, the only person that can turn you into a monster is you.”  He felt the tension in Loki’s muscles under his fingertips as he spoke.  “And mind control doesn’t count,” he added.

            “No? How fortunate for me, then,” Loki said dryly and fell quiet for a long time, flattening his palm over the arc reactor and staring at the blue light spilling between his fingers.  “How…?”

            “A few nights ago I realized that when we were linked – you know, when you had that mind to mind chat function going - I was watching your dreams, or having them, whichever. I saw the kinds of things that wake you up at night.”  Loki took a sharp breath but Tony squeezed his hand. “No, don’t…don’t say anything.  It was hard enough to say this speech – I practiced it my head a lot – so let’s not turn it into a conversation with feelings and stuff.  Just go wherever you go if you need to be alone, and I’ll…be here.”  He forced himself to say the words but the thought of Loki going away again made Tony feel hollowed out, like he was going to blow away.  Perhaps sensing his mood, Loki pulled the blankets over them both, the thickness of them pleasantly grounding. He rested his forehead against Tony’s and pushed the bracelet up his forearm to trace the scar on his wrist. 

            “How do you wear your scars so proudly, Stark?” Loki asked quietly.

            Tony’s laugh at that was broken and jagged. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I? So I decided to take what they did to me and use it to make me stronger. At least, stronger in some ways.” He shrugged self-consciously. “You know what I mean, you’ve seen the days when I can’t get out of bed. Or out of the lab.”

            “I…don’t think I can do that,” Loki admitted.  Tony moved closer, wincing a little when the motion jarred his injured ribs.

            “You don’t have to. You just can’t let that shit define who you are.”  He saw Loki smile faintly at that, pale skin gilded blue by arc reactor.  Tony had gotten that piece of wisdom out of one of his therapy sessions, after he’d finally agreed to go. Therapy had been one of those things that he and Pepper had argued about regularly, particularly on the worst days when he crawled away from her and into a bottle.  He hadn’t understood how talking about it would do anything but make him think about it more, or how a therapist, who had only ever read about the trauma she was trying to treat, was going to have anything to say that could magically make it all better.  Until he was complaining about it to Bruce one day and Bruce had said - like an asshole - “But a doctor doesn’t have to get stabbed to know how to stitch you up, do they, Tony?”  He doubted Loki would ever agree to visit a therapist, but if Loki ever wanted to talk by God Tony would listen, even if they both had to use alcohol as a crutch like well-adjusted people everywhere.  

            He watched Loki’s fingers trace patterns on his forearm and when Loki seemed content with the silence, let his eyes drift back closed.  After a few minutes, Loki sighed, low and long, and suddenly the fingers on his forearm were cold as ice. 

           "What the-" Tony said in surprise and jerked his arm away.  "Whoa," he breathed when he saw that Loki's hand was dark blue and radiating cold.  His eyes flew up to see Loki studying him with a carefully neutral expression, eyebrows slightly furrowed in concentration. Glancing back down at Loki's hand, Tony's hand hovered just above the skin, wondering if Loki could feel his heat the same way Tony could feel Loki's cold.  “Think I could touch you without hurting you?”

           Loki shrugged with an affected carelessness, his eyes still fixed on Tony's face. "You may try."

           “Ok, just...tell me if I need to stop.” He slowly brushed his fingertips over Loki's palm and wrist, tracing the path of a pale blue line there.  When Loki made a noise he jerked his hand back.

           “No, it’s…" Loki shook his head minutely.  "You can continue.” Tony hesitated but Loki seemed sincere, so he traced the line of a vein, slightly darker than the skin around it. The intensity of the cold was surprising, like touching a metal pole in winter, but with the texture and give of living flesh.

           "Frost Giant," Tony said to himself, following the blue until it faded back into white at Loki's upper arm, kept from spreading by Loki's hard fought control.

           "Indeed."  Loki held his hand up and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together; between them, a long, thin sliver of ice grew until it was the length of a pencil. "Thor told you?"

           "Thor told me about Jotunheim," Tony corrected, taking the shard of ice from Loki to examine it.  "It wasn't hard to put two and two together."

           "Hmm," Loki said noncommittally.  Tony watched with interest and followed the line of blue skin with his fingertips as faded, hidden away again under an illusion.

           "So that's the adoption story?  Odin adopted you from Jotunheim and raised you with Thor?"

           Loki was studying his own hand as if he could still see the blue in it.  "Essentially.  After defeating the Frost Giants and driving them back to Jotunheim, Odin discovered me, having been abandoned to the elements as an infant."  Tony winced, though Loki's voice was remote and emotionless. "Odin claims that my father was Laufey, who was the former King of Jotunheim."

           "Former?"

           "I killed him."

           "Ah." Tony had no fucking clue what to say to that, so he just took Loki's hand so he would stop staring at it like it belonged to a stranger.  "I like the blue, Loki.  I'd like to see the whole shebang one day."

           A pained grimace flashed across Loki's face.  "Perhaps."

           Tony would have been content to stay there and hide from the world for a while longer, but his stomach starting making demands that were getting increasingly hard to ignore. “So are you staying for breakfast?” He asked eventually. “Even though Thor’s probably out there eating all the cereal and making atrocious coffee?” 

            “Ah, yes.” Loki rolled onto his back with a sigh, scrubbing his free hand over his face. “Thor has for some reason made our home his own.  What a charming development.” Tony would admit only on pain of death that his heart warmed when Loki said _our_ home. 

            “I have a feeling today is going to suck, but I can handle it as long as you’re here,” Tony said honestly.  “Stay?”

            Loki gave a long-suffering sigh and brought Tony’s hand to his mouth, brushing his lips over Tony’s scarred knuckles. “Very well.  I will stay and be civil.” 

            Thank you.” Tony pressed a kiss to the inside of Loki’s wrist and carefully rolled out of bed, sitting up and holding his breath until the pain in his ribs eased enough for him to stand. “JARVIS, will you order us all some food?” 

 

             “Morning, Thor.” Thor glanced up at Tony’s voice and paused for a moment when he saw Loki before he looked back down at his bowl of cereal and continued eating.

            “Good morning, Stark. How are you faring today?”

            Tony went straight for the coffee pot while Loki hovered indecisively before finally sitting at the table across from Thor.  “Well, I’m on my feet,” Tony said lightly.  “So it could be worse.” He poured himself a cup of coffee from a pot that Thor must have made, but when he saw the dark film it left behind on the coffee pot he made a face and got out the French press.  “Here, I think you’ll like this,” he said, handing Loki the cup instead.  Out of experience Tony knew that it was strong enough to strip paint and not fit for human consumption, so he figured Loki would like it.  “I had a bit of a rough night, but I got by,” he continued to Thor, smiling when Loki made a noise of appreciation.  “How are you?”

            “I am well.” 

            For a few minutes the only sound in the kitchen was the kettle until the elevator doors dinged and opened, revealing takeout bags of food.  "Breakfast is here, sir.”  Tony dumped everything out in the middle of the table for everyone, taking an omelet and donut for himself.  Thor and Loki seemed content to ignore each other while they ate, so Tony gratefully gave up trying to make conversation and focused on his food. 

            They had about fifteen minutes of eating in peace before reality intruded. “Sir, Fury is calling, should I put him through?”

            Tony sighed and put his fork down, shoving his half-eaten omelet away. “There’s that other shoe,” he muttered to himself. “Yeah, go ahead JARVIS.”

            “Hey, Tony,” Fury’s voice came on over the kitchen speakers, sounding a little like the voice of an imperious god.  A tired imperious god, Tony thought with a frown. “Watching the news?”

            “Nope.” Tony took a swallow of coffee.  “Been actively avoiding it, actually.  Had enough of a bad day yesterday.”

            “Well, you’re not the only one.  Capitol Hill is throwing Maria under the bus because of it.”

            Tony rubbed his eyes for a long time and felt Loki move a leg so it was pressed against his own.  With a sigh he reached for his tablet. “Alright, JARVIS, gimme the news.”

            “You let me know when you see what I see.”

            It only took Tony a few minutes to see what Fury was talking about. “Those crafty fucking bastards,” Tony breathed as he watched the news coverage.  He set the tablet down so that the video feed was projected above the table for Thor and Loki to see.  Some of the footage that the news was running could only have come from cameras pre-staged at the scene of the ambush.  Those videos segued into clips of the bodies as they were pulled from the wreckage, film clearly taken on camera phones by the local first responders.  Tony glanced the clock and did the math; the only way the news agencies would have had this footage this fast is if someone had made a special effort to collect it all during the night and dump it on CNN’s desk like a Christmas present.  “They set us up, and we fell for it, hook line and sinker.”

            “Yeah, that’s what it looks like to me too.”

             As a result, the political fallout was heaping right on Maria’s head.  Pundits were questioning her ability to run SHIELD and the Avengers program, saying that perhaps putting her in as head after Fury’s death had been hasty and wondering if other candidates had ever been considered.  No one had come out and called for her resignation – yet – but it was in the air.  And if Maria was ousted, it was only a matter of time before all of their hard work clearing Hydra out of SHIELD was undone.

            “So what are we going to do?”  Tony glanced at Loki, who was watching the news with narrowed eyes, twirling his fork between his fingers.  Thor had looked at the news for a moment before returning to his food with a dark look on his face. “Isn’t the Director of SHIELD a presidential appointment?  Think Ellis is going to cave and appoint someone else?” Tony muted the tablet as the channel shifted to where President Ellis was giving a press conference comprised mostly of platitudes and plausible deniability.

            “That’s one of the reasons I was calling.  This would be a really good time for Steve to show his face, if you know how to get in touch with him.  A little Captain America could go a long way right now.”

            “Ooh, press conferences. Steve’s favorite.”  Tony pulled out his phone and dialed the last number he had for Steve.  It didn’t even ring but went straight to an automated message.  Hanging up, he opened up a text to Stephen. _Got a good contact number for Steve? My calls just go straight to vmail_.  “Alright, I’m on it,” he said out loud. “I’ll keep you posted.”

            “Thank you, Tony.” Tony just grunted and disconnected the call. “Are you up for a press conference, Thor? It would probably look better if we were all up there with Steve.”

            “Whatever it takes to repair the damage from our folly yesterday.” Thor stood and retrieved his pot of coffee, refilling his cup then Loki’s, who accepted it with a raised eyebrow.

            It only took a few minutes for Stephen to text him back. _After James was stabilized they left NYC,_ he wrote. _Leave a vmail and he’ll call you back._ After a moment, his phone buzzed again. _Also you owe me a Glenfidditch. So many disappointed silences, even though James thought it was funny._

            Tony rolled his eyes and called Steve’s number one more time, this time leaving a message.  It took almost an entire day to get a return call; Tony was elbow deep in the Destroyer when JARVIS announced an incoming call from an unknown number.

            “Send it to my phone, please,” he said as he quickly wiped his hands and accepted the call. “Hey, Steve.  I assume you got my message?”

            “I’m not doing it,” Steve said curtly.

            “Excuse me?” Tony said, incredulous. “What do you mean, you’re not doing it?”

            “I said, I’m not doing the press conference,” Steve repeated. “If this is really Hydra, I’m not going to play right into their hands by sticking my neck out on national television.”

             “Bullshit. You’ve been sitting out almost this whole fight, Rogers!” Tony snapped.  “I was kidnapped and tortured because of people looking for _you,_ Maria’s been making enemies right and left and all we ask you to do is a press conference and you’re going to just _walk away_?”

            “I’m not going to let Hydra use me as a way to find Bucky.”

            “Jesus Christ, Steve.” Tony took the phone away from his ear and had to put his head down on his desk and pray for patience. “Come here, to the Tower, where we can control who comes in or out.  Wear the uniform, say your piece – something about how Maria Hill is the greatest asset to the United States since, I don’t know, George Washington – and then let Stephen or Loki give you a magic carpet ride back to your beloved.  Then you guys can keep doing whatever you’re doing wherever you are, and Hydra can try as much as it wants to try to track your movements.” Tony paused but Steve was stubbornly silent.  “You owe us this much, Steve.”

            “Technically, he owes _me,_ ” Loki said from across the room, where he had taken over one corner of Tony’s shop couch and was doing something to Tony’s bracelet, running it through his fingers like a Catholic with a rosary. Even from where he was sitting Tony could see green and gold light skittering over its surface before being swallowed by the uru. 

            Tony put his hand over the phone’s microphone. “Hey, you only found Bucky because I got kidnapped, so I get some of the credit.”

            “Fine. Tell me when and where and I’ll figure out how to get there,” Steve said in his ear, after what sounded like some muttered conversation on his side as well.

            “Should I leave you another voicemail? Or maybe send a telegram? Pay a street urchin a ha’penny to run it to you, since we're suddenly back to communicating like cavemen?”

            “Well if you send a street urchin, I’d have to kill him to keep him from disclosing our location, so voicemail is fine.” Then Steve hung up because he knew how to make a good exit, the little shit. Tony forced himself to text Pepper about setting up the press conference as soon as she could and put down his phone carefully before throwing a wrench across the room.  It hit the far wall with a satisfying clang.

            “Goddammit, why does Steve get under my skin so much?”

            “Because he reminds you of your father,” Loki answered mildly, studying the bracelet intensely as if checking his work.

            Tony scowled at him. “Steve is _nothing_ like my father.”

            “Rogers was created by your father.  Many, including your father, consider him his greatest accomplishment, and you’ve always resented that.”  Loki looked up to see Tony staring at him. Loki tapped his temple as he stood and joined Tony at his work table.

            “Oh yeah. That’s not fair,” Tony complained, taking the bracelet back from Loki and refastening it on his wrist. “I want to get inside your head for a while.”

            “No, you don’t.”  For a moment the look in Loki’s eyes was remote and chilling, and any argument Tony was going to make withered right up.  A thousand yard stare honed over a thousand years was a powerful thing.  Then Loki seemed to come back from wherever his thoughts had gone, and with a small smile he wiped a streak of grease off Tony’s cheek with his thumb. “Besides, I know well how it feels to be raised in the shadow of someone else and resent them for it.”

***

            Tony waited behind the curtain for Steve to arrive, the muted roar of conversation on the other side of the thick fabric both painfully familiar and anxiety inducing all at once.  When he felt the familiar tension start to crawl up his back and shoulders, he started to pace and count the floor tiles until the sparking sputter of an incoming portal caught his attention.  As it grew brighter and sliced a hole in reality, he found himself adjusting his tie nervously before he forced his hands down and into his pockets with a scowl.

            “Hey, Steve,” he said, rocking back on his heels as Steve came through the portal.  He recognized Stephen’s library on the other side of the portal and gave the sorcerer a thank you wave before it vanished. “You’re looking…well,” he finished lamely.  The word he wanted to say was different, but it was hard to quantify how.  Steve looked tired but satisfied, stressed but somehow happy about it.  Well, judging from the line between his eyebrows, he wasn’t happy _right now_ , but the tension in his posture was different somehow. 

            “Hey, Tony.  How are you?” Steve held out his hand and after an awkward hesitation Tony shook it, struck by an odd melancholia as their hands fell away from each other.

            Tony shrugged and looked down at his feet.  “My ribs are healing well, but I’m back to having nightmares every night, and I’m scared shitless that Hydra is working up to something big and we still have no idea what.”  He met Steve’s eyes.  “You know, you could both come stay-“ he started, but Steve was already shaking his head.

            “You’re in Hydra’s crosshairs right now, Tony.  They have no idea where Bucky is and I’m going to keep it that way.” 

            Tony scowled. “We can keep you safe-“

            “No offense, Tony, but it sounds like you are barely keeping yourself safe.  I’m sorry, but Bucky is my number one priority right now.”  Tony wanted to argue, but Steve had set his jaw and crossed his arms so he knew it would be pointless. Besides, he’d seen some of the medical scans Stephen had taken during Bucky’s treatment, particularly the X-rays and MRIs of where his metal arm was secured to his body, and if Hydra had done half the damage to Bucky’s brain that they’d done to his body it was a surprise he wasn’t a drooling vegetable.  On the other hand, considering that the last time he’d seen ol’ Bucko he’d been pulling Tony out of the sky with his bare hands it was a bit hard to see him as a damsel in distress.  In any event, Tony just held his hands up in surrender and stopped talking.  On the other side of the curtain laughter rippled through the gathered crowd.  

            “Do we need to-“ Steve tilted his head towards the curtain.

            “No rush, Thor’s out there right now keeping them occupied until you’re ready.” Steve just nodded and sighed, looking down at his hands. Tony watched as he shifted his shoulders minutely, as if reassuring himself that the shield was still on his back.  “I know you’re worried, but we’re not going to let anything happen, okay?  There have been press events at the White House with less security than we’ve got right now.” 

            “Yeah?” Steve raised an eyebrow and looked around the empty room pointedly, mouth curling faintly at the corners.  “I don’t even see one of your suits anywhere.”

            Tony raised and arm and pulled back his sleeve to reveal his bracelet.  “I don’t need to carry one around anymore, I’ve upgraded.”

            “How does that work?”

            “Magic,” Tony said smugly.  “What’s the point of knowing not one, but _two_ sorcerers if you can’t get them to make you magic swag?”

            At that point Pepper stuck her head around the curtain.  “Hi Steve,” she said with a smile.  “It’s a pleasure to see you, despite the circumstances.  Are you ready?”

            “As ready as I’ll ever be, Ms. Potts,” Steve said, squaring his shoulders. And just like that, with a change in posture, Steve Rogers became Captain America and strode through the curtain to a crescendo of flashing cameras and raised voices like he was walking in front of a firing squad.

***

            “I am sorry that I was not there when my friends and teammates were targeted in this malicious attack, and I am saddened that so many innocent civilians lost their lives.  However, I have the greatest confidence in the abilities of Director Maria Hill, who has been with the Avengers program since its inception. Director Hill has consistently-“ On the other side of the room Stark muted the replay of Steve’s speech, which Loki noticed had been on repeat on every major station for the last three hours, along with some hysterical questioning of where Captain America had been for the last four months and the usual talking head nonsense that Stark assured him was normal for human news. 

            “That went well,” Stark commented.  Out of the corner of his eye Loki saw Stark accept a cup of coffee from DUM-E.  “No explosions, no shooting, no dramatic standoffs. A nice, boring, productive press conference.”

            “Indeed,” Loki answered, distracted as he tried to answer a question from Strange on his phone.  Stark spun idly in his chair, and Loki could feel Stark’s gaze on him until he hit send and glanced up again with a muttered “what?” 

            As if deciding something, Stark pushed off his work table and rolled his chair over to where Loki was sitting, leaning over to give him a kiss. Loki tilted his head to slide his lips across Stark’s, licking in deep when Stark’s mouth opened over his with a deep-throated noise of want.

             “I have something for you,” Stark murmured against his lips as he pulled away, rolling back over to his desk and pulling out a tightly rolled up leather bundle out of the bottom drawer.  “Know what day it is?”  Eyebrow raised, Loki held his phone out so that Stark could see the date and time, earning a snort of amusement.  “Alright, smartass.  I don’t know if you pay attention to these things – I mean, I usually don’t, you can ask Pepper, I’m terrible – but Stephen actually reminded me that we’re at our one year anniversary.”

            “I hadn’t realized.” Loki stood and joined him at the desk, eyeing the bundle curiously.  

            Stark shrugged.  “Not a big deal. If it's weird, consider it an early Christmas present."  When Loki raised an eyebrow and started to smile, Stark paused.  "Unless the whole Christianity thing is a sore spot with you. It's easy to forget sometimes that I'm sleeping with an ancient heathen god." That thought seemed to give Stark pause, but he visibly shook it off after a moment. " _Anyway_ , I had some time on my hands last week so I made these for you.”  He untied the bundle and unrolled it, revealing eight knives of varying size, shining and sharp against the leather of the knife roll. Loki was speechless; the knives were beautiful _._ There was no unnecessary ornamentation, just well-honed blades, sleek and deadly. He ran a finger over one of them and looked back at Stark in disbelief.

            “I thought you’d like them,” Stark said with a grin, thankfully able to see the gratitude that Loki couldn’t express. “I made them myself; it was kind of nice to get back to the basics again.  Plus there were plenty of times recently where I felt like hitting something really hard with a hammer.”  He drew one of the knives out of a pocket, the blade about the length of Loki’s palm.  He crouched at Loki’s feet and drew out the blade that Loki kept in his boot, comparing it to the one in his hand.

            They were the same size. “God, I’m good,” Stark said, and handed the knife up to Loki while he put the new one in.  He took his time getting to his feet, running his hands up Loki’s legs with a wink.  “These are all coated with adamantium, which was a bitch to work with but means that they can cut through anything and will never get dull.”  Loki watched Stark pull the next four out with a new appreciation; these were long and narrow with no hilt, just a flat, flared pommel. Throwing knives.

            Stark stepped in close and reached around Loki’s back. Loki couldn’t help himself; he framed Stark’s face in his hands and slid his lips across his, coaxing Stark’s mouth open again with his tongue.  Stark pressed closer as he drew out the set of throwing knives from the small of Loki’s back.  He broke away with a shaky inhale, hands a little unsteady as he reached for the new set to replace them, sliding them into the sheaths at the base of Loki’s spine.

            Loki felt need start to pool between his legs as he watched Stark pull out the next two, another matched set.  These two were the smallest, only the length of a finger, with a hilt almost as wide as the blade was long.  Stark took each of his hands and turned them over, finding the blades hidden on his forearms along the clasps of the vambraces, and kissed his palms when he had replaced the knives there with the ones of his own make.  Loki tightened his hands around the tingling imprint of Stark’s mouth, forcing himself to be patient.  The final blade was the longest, a dagger more than a knife. At Stark’s urging Loki knelt, resting his forehead against Stark’s hip as he replaced the dagger that lay along Loki’s spine.

            Loki would never have thought that the feeling of knives being sheathed would be in any way… _arousing,_ but the new knives had a different heft that made him aware of their presence, a reminder that Stark, this astounding, surprising man, had made them with his own hands as a gift.  “You…” he said roughly, hands tight on Stark’s hips as he looked up at him.  “You are…”

            Stark smiled and slid his hands through Loki’s hair, pulling lightly, urging him to stand. He leaned against the work table, his smile slow and eyes dark.  “You're welcome.  Now take it all off again.”

           With a slow smile of his own Loki began to strip, shedding clothes and armor and Stark’s carefully placed blades, all under Stark’s hot gaze.  Stark licked his lips as his eyes were drawn to each new stretch of Loki's skin as it was bared.  Loki's eyes slid shut as Stark ran his hands over his chest, the skin of his palms rough and calloused. He shivered and then Stark was pulling him down for a kiss, hands greedy and mouth insistent. Loki  when the tight coil of anxiety became a flood of desire, and he slid his hands into Stark’s pants to pull him closer.  Loki inhaled sharply when he felt the hot, hard length of Stark’s erection pressing against him. His fingers dug into Stark's hips, holding him still for Loki to rock into him.

           “Christ you feel good,” Stark said with a groan, hips moving on Loki's thigh in a dirty, grinding rhythm, eager for the friction. He nipped along his jaw before capturing his mouth again, the kiss rough and hungry.

            Loki moved his hands to grip the hem of Stark’s shirt, pulling it over his head even as he twisted space to take them to the bedroom.  Stark moved down Loki’s body with a trail of bites and kisses, hands leaving fire in their wake until they were occupied for a moment at the fastening to Loki’s pants.  Then the air punched out of Loki’s lungs as Stark swallowed him down, his mouth hot and wet and tight. Loki let his head fall back as his hands buried themselves in Stark’s hair, stomach tightening as his cock hit the back of Stark's throat.  Stark’s mouth was moving on him with agonizing slowness as his hands slid Loki's pants down his legs, then he was pulling away and Loki made an involuntary sound of loss.

            “Bed,” Stark ordered, nudging Loki backwards until he hit the mattress.  Stark kicked off his shop jeans and moved to stand between Loki's knees, fisting a hand in Loki’s hair to pull his head back.  He bit the exposed line of Loki’s throat, _hard_ , and the sting of it went straight to Loki’s groin.  “I want to be inside you,” he said against Loki's throat, voice low and breath hot on his skin, and Loki shivered again.

            "Yes," Loki said roughly.  At Stark's urging he moved farther onto the bed until Stark could crawl over him and press him firmly to the mattress with a hand on his chest.  

           "No magic," Stark said, biting the inside of Loki's thigh and then kissing the sting, beard tickling slightly.  "I want to do this the old fashioned way." And that was the only warning he gave before he was pressing Loki's thighs up and licked a hot wet stripe across Loki's hole.  Loki's back arched at the unexpected thick pulse of pleasure and his breath turned ragged when Stark did it again and again.  He shuddered when the sense of vulnerability warred with wanting _more_  as Stark held him open for his tongue, jabbing at his core.  Stark's hands vanished from him for a moment, and then his tongue was fluttering at his rim while a slick finger slid inside.  Loki's breath left him in a rush and he felt more than heard Stark's hum of approval.

            "Stark..." Loki had no idea what he meant to say because at that moment Stark's finger thrust in and curled up and Stark's beard was rasping his thighs and the resulting curl of fire down his spine was intoxicating. He moved his hips, seeking more.

           "See?" Stark murmured smugly, nipping at the crest of Loki's hip as he added another finger.  "Taking the long way can be fun."  Then, apparently determined to drive Loki out of his mind, he put his mouth on Loki's cock again, tongue pressing hard along the bottom, as he thrust in and out with his fingers.  Loki closed his eyes and let himself unravel, body tensing and relaxing as Stark added a third finger.

            "Stark," he said again, this time in warning, the sensation in his groin curling tighter and tighter.  With an appreciative hum that vibrated through his cock Stark pulled off and pulled his fingers out, kissing and biting his way up Loki's body.  Stark braced himself with an arm by Loki's head as he lined himself up and slid inside with a low moan.  Loki reached for his left hand and stroked the faint scar there with his thumb, lifting his hips with an almost wounded noise as Stark bottomed out. "May I?" he managed, trying to stay still as Stark trembled above him. 

            "Yes, God, whatever you-" Stark's words were cut off by a strangled moan as Loki opened up the channel between them and they were both awash in the sensation of thrusting in and being entered, of holding and being held and skin against skin until even Loki was lost in it.  Stark thrust forward helplessly, chasing the sensation, and they both groaned. He rested his head on Loki's chest as he tried to catch his breath.

           "Too much?" Loki couldn't keep himself from moving against Stark, small thrusts with his hips as he reveled in Stark's thickness inside him.  He felt Stark shake his head.

           "No, it's..." Stark pulled out slowly and then thrust back in just as slowly, and they both reveled in the drag of Stark's cock as he moved.  "Holy shit, I can feel..." With his free hand Stark hitched Loki's leg higher up on his hip and thrust again.  Loki arched and Stark's hips stuttered as he hit the spot that sent lightning through them both.  He rolled his hips again, then with a low growl that sent a jolt of anticipation through Loki's gut he braced himself against the bed and began to thrust in earnest.  Loki's hand's tightened convulsively on the sheets and a groan was ripped from deep in his chest.  Every movement was dragging them both together towards the edge like a spring being coiled tighter and tighter.  Dimly he could hear Stark cursing and he could feel the echo of his desperation as he tried to hold on, to ride the wave of drugging pleasure as long as possible, but it was too late for control.  Loki came in a cleansing rush, dragging Stark with him, his pleasure and Stark's feeding on each other in a spiral until Loki's vision went white. Finally Stark collapsed against him, boneless and breathing heavy.  Loki pressed his lips to Stark's temple, letting him feel Loki's warm rush of affection before he broke the link. 

           "Let's do that again sometime," Stark rasped as he pulled out slowly and rolled off onto the bed.  "But let's give it a few weeks or my heart might give out, arc reactor or no."

***

           They were four days into cohabitating with Thor and Loki was still interpreting “being civil” as “thoroughly ignoring,” so this evening Thor was in one armchair, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle as he watched martial arts videos on Tony’s tablet. Loki was reading on the couch, as far from Thor as he could get and still be in the same room.  Tony went to join Loki on the couch, close but trying not to push the limits of Thor’s apparent acceptance of Loki’s “breaking thousands of years of Asgardian social mores” relationship with Tony.  He briefly considered trading Thor the TV remote for the tablet so he could get some work done, but honestly right now he could really care less. So instead he put his feet up on the coffee table and slouched back against the couch cushions to do some good old fashioned channel hopping while he decided what to watch from JARVIS's media drive.  He scrolled through the movie channels and was flipping quickly past the news when a headline caught his eye.  A chill crawled down his back and his breathing grew shallow. 

            “JARVIS…is this real?”  He asked numbly.  Thor glanced up from Tony’s tablet, face growing still and serious as he realized what he was seeing.  Tony stood and walked closer to the television.

            “Stark-“ Loki started, but Tony brushed his hand aside, evading his touch without taking his eyes from the screen. On it, they watched as a man with long dark hair and metal arm pulled a man from a wrecked vehicle and punched him in the face until he went limp. Tony made an involuntary noise of pain, as if he had been hit as well. At the bottom of the screen “HOWARD STARK MURDERED?” were blazed in large letters.

            “There are no signs that the video has been tampered with, sir. Other than that, I cannot speak to its veracity.”  Tony watched it as the news channel played it on repeat, this time zooming in on the killer, trying to get a clear view of his face.  Warnings flashed across the screen regarding the gruesome nature of the video, but it was clear that the assholes on TV were relishing having such spectacular footage.  They would be milking this for days, with no regard for –

            He stood up and started to pace. Distantly he noticed that he was shaking, and he rubbed his palms absently on his pants. The man on the screen was – that arm was unmistakable.  He had- had Loki known – he rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair.  He stared at his phone and finally picked it up and dialed a number from memory, not even noticing that Loki and Thor were watching him warily.

            “Tony.”  Steve actually picked up on the first ring this time, voice was cautious and subdued.  Well that answered the first question Tony was going to ask.

            “Did you know?” He asked tightly, eyes dry as he watched the grainy, black and white security video footage again.

            “No, I didn’t, I swear. I just saw…I’m so sorry, Tony. He doesn’t remember-”

            In the last few seconds of the video Bucky stares right into the camera before he shoots it.  To a stranger, the quality of the film was perhaps too poor to make a positive ID, but it wasn’t a face Tony could forget easily.  “Give him up, Steve. I know he’s with you.”  Tony was proud of how calm he sounded when everything was breaking inside. 

            “It wasn’t him, Tony. He didn’t have a choice.  The things Hydra did–“

            Suddenly Tony needed air, desperately, so he went outside, away from the television. The door closed quietly behind him.  Outside, the sun was sinking past the city skyline, the sky growing dark.  “You watched the same thing I did, Steve.  He – he hunted them down.  He beat my father to death. We had to have a closed casket. And my mom – he just -“ Tony’s voice finally broke, and he leaned his head on the railing and tried to breathe around the thickness in his throat.  The phone vibrated in his hand.  He pulled away from the meaningless words Steve was saying to read the text.

 _Oh my god Tony I just saw.  I’ll be there as soon as I can, I’m in LA._ Pepper, write, then tried to ring in, which he ignored. He could still hear Steve saying something but another text came up. _Please Tony don’t do anything hasty,_ Natasha wrote. _I’m on my way_.

            Hasty.  _Hasty?_ Anger bubbled under the grief.  _We are twenty years past_ hasty. 

            “Tony, I’m sorry –“

            “Shut up, Rogers,” he said savagely. He didn’t want to hear it, not from Steve. _I’m sorry, but. I’m sorry my boyfriend killed your family, but._  “Just shut the fuck up.  Start running, because I’m coming for him.  And when I find him, I’m going to do to him what he did to my family, and God help anyone who gets in my way.”  He ended the call and dropped the phone off the side of the balcony, turning away to get a suit from inside. 

            But Loki was blocking his way.  “Stark, don’t,” Loki said lowly, hands coming up to Tony’s shoulders.  Tony couldn’t take the sympathy in Loki’s gaze so he shrugged out of his grip and backed away.

            “Don’t start, Loki. This has nothing to do with you.”

            “You know this is Hydra.  They are trying to distract you, to drive a wedge –“

            “Shut up,” Tony snarled. “ _Your_ mom died on her feet. Fighting. And look how fucked up you are about it.”  Loki’s eyes narrowed but Stark didn’t back down.  “My parents were executed. Put down like _animals._ And you are going to stand there and tell me that I should let bygones be bygones for the greater good? That the guy who did that to them, who took them away from me, should get to be happy? No. Fuck that. Fuck _you._ ” Light glowed around him, bright and opalescent in the night until moonlight was glinting off metal armor.  “Stay out of this,” he warned, and then he was blazing south.

 

            Loki paced and ran a hand over his mouth as he thought furiously, chest tight as Stark disappeared into the sky. His steps stilled as he saw Thor standing at the door.

            “So it would happen again? Brother fighting brother?” He said quietly, eyes dark.

            “So it would seem.”  Loki exhaled long and low, jaw tightening.

            “What would you do?”

            “What would you have me do?” Loki snapped. “Am I to deny him his justice?”

            “Is that what this is? Justice?” Thor said, crossing his arms. “You would stand by and watch him do what we did to ourselves, out of anger and ignorance and pride?”

            Loki stared at him for a long moment, surprised.  He started to say something but he shook his head and paced away, running his hands through his hair before making a noise of frustration and stepping sideways to the dark paths.

            It was the work of the moment to find Captain Rogers and Barnes, though the latter’s mind had changed a great deal since Loki last encountered it.  They were packing quickly, moving with an unconscious coordination through the rooms where they had been staying. 

            “Loki,” Steve said warily, straightening his shoulders and bracing himself as if expecting a fight.  “Are you here to take us to Tony?”

            Loki ignored him to look at the man shoving weapons and clothes into a duffle bag, the distinctive metal arm covered by long sleeved shirts and gloves. “Do you recognize me?”

            The man stopped and flicked a wary glance at Steve.  “You were there when I thawed out. Before Steve.”

            “Yes.  And I told you to do something. What was it?”

            “To remember.”

            “Do you?”

            “Not all of it, but enough.”  He looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists.  “More, now that I saw that video.  Howard recognized me before I…”       

            “If Stark finds you now, he will try to kill you.” Steve started to protest and looked like he might try to grab Loki’s arm.  Loki turned to look at him, eyes hard.  In the relative dark of the room, the greenish light starting to coil around him was easy to see, the anger in his eyes less so. “Be still, Captain.  This isn’t about you.”

            “I know,” Barnes said, talking over Steve.  “I don’t blame him.  I killed his parents, and a whole lotta other people besides.”

            “But that wasn’t-“ Steve interrupted again and Loki held a hand out.  Steve froze, green light chasing itself around his body.

            “So do you deserve to die?”  He was curious what this man would say, who had been scraped clean of everything that made him an individual and remade into a weapon.  Did not remembering make it easier to sleep at night?

            Barnes exhaled slowly.  “I don’t know.  Maybe.”

            Loki raised an eyebrow and nodded once.  “Finish your preparations and go.  I’ve no grudge against you, and I’ll not let Stark have your blood on his hands.”  He released Steve.

            “-you,” Steve finished, confused as he realized that he had lost time.  He glanced at Barnes, who shook his head shortly and went back to packing.  With a final wary look at Loki he went back to work as well, and when they finished Loki sent them away to somewhere flat and boring and anonymous, almost a punishment in itself.   As the silence settled around him he waited for Stark, refusing to pace in the cluttered disarray of the empty house.  It wasn’t long before he heard the muted roar of Stark’s suit approaching and landing on the lawn, then the door was slamming open and bouncing off the wall behind it.

            One glance around the room apparently told Stark everything.  “You let them escape,” he said flatly, raising his face plate.

            “Yes.”

            Stark punched through a wall. “ _Why?”_

            “Though your desire for vengeance is understandable, it is not wise, nor is it just,” Loki said quietly. “Don’t let Hydra manipulate you, Stark.”

            With a roar of rage Tony swung at him and then felt the familiar swoop in his stomach that meant Loki was teleporting them somewhere.  Suddenly there was a shocking burst of cold against his face and he was fallling. The repulsors automatically activated before he fell more than a few feet, but he let out an involuntary “whoa” when he looked down and saw what he had almost fallen into, slamming his faceplate closed against the cold.  His HUD automatically adjusted his display to compensate for the lack of light, but even so he couldn’t see the bottom of the canyon he was hovering over.  Though he hesitated to call it a canyon; it wasn’t terribly wide and it cut an unnaturally straight line across the terrain as far as the eye could see in either direction.  It was like a gash had been cut into the land with an insanely large knife.  Other than that, the rest of the landscape was flat and unremarkable, littered with boulders and other fallen rocks.  When Tony looked up in the sky he realized he was no longer on Earth, not only because JARVIS was mysteriously silent but because the stars were unrecognizable and what he thought was the moon was actually a very distant sun.  The sensory readout said it was fifty below; definitely not weather to be taking his helmet off in.

            “Jotunheim?” he asked finally, landing next to Loki.

            “Yes.”

            “Why in the _hell_ did you bring me here?”

            Loki held up a hand and nudged a rock over the side of the canyon with his boot.  They waited for a few minutes but never heard it hit bottom.  “I did this,” he said, gesturing. “Out of pain, grief, and anger. I wanted to destroy the entire planet, for the entire race of Frost Giants to end with me. I still have no idea how many I killed before Thor destroyed the Bifrost in order to stop me.”  He was quiet for a long time, staring into the chasm. “Had someone come to me earlier and seen the pain, had stopped me earlier...” Loki turned away from it to face Tony again, eyes shadowed and face looking unnaturally pale in the dim light of Jotunheim’s sun.  “So I am here to stop you before you go too far.  I’m not going to stand by and watch you destroy what you’ve built on Earth.”

            “With all due respect, Loki, all I’m going to destroy is that murderous asshole that killed my parents, and maybe Steve if he tries to stop me.  So take me back to Earth already.”

            “No.”

            “No?” Stark repeated in disbelief.  “This is for my own good, is it? Well fuck you, Loki.  I’ve been taking care of myself long before you came along and I will continue to do so after you leave.”

             “After I leave?” Loki echoed, staring into the featureless face of Stark's helmet.  “Where exactly am I going?”

            “Come on, Loki,” Stark said bitterly.  “Who are we kidding? You are effectively immortal, and I’ve probably got fewer years than most left because of my litebrite here." He tapped the arc reactor, glaringly bright in the dimness of Jotunheim.  "I’ve got what, ten years left until the only thing I’m flying is a desk? If some asshole doesn’t kill me first.  You going to stick around for that? For gray hairs and wrinkles? Alzheimer's and hospital beds? ”

           "Be that as it may," Loki managed, voice even and tightly controlled, "I would not see you hasten your demise by giving in to Hydra's manipulations."

            “So this is it, then? You’re siding with _them_?”

            “Don’t be a fool,” Loki bit out sharply.  “Listen to yourself. You are already creating sides. If you continue, you are going to create a war that rips your Avengers apart.” He put his hand on the arc reactor and shoved, sending Stark back a step.  “If you are so eager for battle, fight me.”

            “I’m not going to fight you, Loki.” Stark paced away. His hands went to his head to run them through his hair in frustration, but he remembered he was wearing a helmet so they just dropped to his sides again.

            “Why not? I’m standing between you and Barnes.  I let them escape.”

            “Stop,” Stark growled, knocking Loki's hand away when he moved to push him again. “Take me back.”

            “No.”

            “ _Why are you defending him?_ ” Stark shouted in frustration.  “Do I mean so little to you that-“

            “Silence, Stark,” Loki hissed, and this time an unseen blast of magic shoved Stark roughly backwards, almost back into the canyon. “There is no one in this universe that means more to me than you.  But if Barnes is a monster that deserves to die, then I deserve no less, for my crimes here and on Midgard.”

            “You-“ Stark made an indecipherable noise of frustrated rage and stomped away. He found a rock formation and punched it, reducing it to rubble with fists and firearms, all the while shouting and cursing. Loki waited patiently, keeping a wary eye for Frost Giants, until Tony returned. 

            “You win.  I won’t try to find them,” Stark said, anger still making his voice rough and tight through the suit’s speakers. “As far as I’m concerned, they may as well be dead.  Now take me home.”


	11. The Gathering Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony knew Hydra had been planning something big but holy shit, this was unexpected.

            Three weeks later, Tony got a call. 

***

            Tony stared at Steve for a long time through the one way glass.  He looked…infuriatingly unafraid.  Granted, it was harder to see his expression with the beard and longer hair, but it was there in the set of his shoulders, the casual but attentive way he sat with his elbows on the table, unconcerned about the metal cuffs on his wrists. For someone facing charges of aiding and abetting a wanted criminal, assault with a deadly weapon, arson, destruction of property, and who knows how many counts of battery – the DA hadn’t decided about the murder charges yet – Steve looked like was about to sit through an HR meeting.  Politely bored. Frankly, it wasn’t fucking fair that he looked so blasé; these days it seemed like Tony was constantly waking up scared and going to sleep angry.  Project Insight was still progressing rapidly and they were still no closer to figuring out what Hydra was planning, especially since it was getting harder and harder to find Hydra agents and none of them were giving up anything.

              And now there was this.  With a sigh, Tony ran a hand over his face and glanced at the cop on duty, who gave him a nod and let him in the room.

            “Goddammit, Steve,” Tony said, dropping heavily into the metal chair. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

            “They were all Hydra, Tony," Steve growled.  His relaxed posture didn't change but his voice was savage, eyes piercing and intense.  Tony had never seen him look so angry.  "Involved with the Winter Soldier project.”

            “So when your boyfriend is outed as an internationally wanted assassin, instead of laying low you guys decide to blow up a storage unit building-“

            “That’s where they kept him between missions, like unwanted _furniture_ -“

            Tony spoke louder. “- a medical office building-“

            “Where they experimented on him!”

            Tony sat up straight and slammed his hand on the table angrily.  “Where’s your proof, Steve? Because let me tell you, the FBI has been over every inch of all _six_ facilities and found _nothing._ ”

            “Of course they didn’t.” Steve sat back in his chair, eyes cold and jaw set.  “Hydra is good at cleaning up after themselves.”

            “Exactly. _Exactly,_ Steve,” Tony hissed. “We had them on the run.  SHIELD is clean. We’ve cleared most of the Senate and we’re working on the White House.  You know where we haven’t even started yet? The FBI.”

            “So you know this is all Hydra-“

            “Goddammit Steve! Don’t you get it?” Tony pushed his chair back and started pacing, only getting about four steps in either direction before he had to turn.  “Of course it’s Hydra.  They knew you were on the run, they _forced_ you to be on the run. But instead of keeping your head down you played right into their hands.”

            Steve started to cross his arms but was pulled up short by the handcuffs.  He scowled instead.  “What was I supposed to do? Call it in to the police?” he said sarcastically.  “And then watch as Hydra scattered like cockroaches so they can set up shop somewhere else? Especially knowing what they did to-” Steve bit off the rest of his sentence and shook his head.  “No. No way, Tony.”

            Tony was shaking his head before Steve finished talking. “Well, congratulations then, I hope it was worth it.  Because of your little vigilante spree, you and the Terminator are headed to the Raft.” He straightened the chair and sat back down.  “Here’s the options you left us.  One, we let you go to the Raft and finish finding and eliminating Hydra without you, while you read improving literature in an 8 by 8 cell courtesy of the US prison system.  If Hydra lets you live that long, or decides to not to put your brains in a blender.  Two, we bust you guys out, and you’re back on the run but now we’re on the run with you and can’t do shit about Hydra.  Or three, now that I think about it, you can stop pretending like those cuffs are keeping you here, bust your buddy out as well, and keep going until Hydra finds you again and maybe aren’t so nice about bringing you in.” 

            The chains on his wrists clanged against the metal table as Steve leaned forward, eyes deadly serious.  “You know I’m not going to let them take him to the Raft.”

            “Yeah, strangely enough, I did guess that.”  Tony rubbed his eyes tiredly and looked at his watch.  He pressed a button and it beeped quietly. “When it happens, you’ll have 27 minutes.  Then, for Christ’s sake, go find a cabin in Canada or a beach in Mexico and stay out of trouble, so that you aren’t in jail when we need your help.  Think you can do that? Try to fuck through all your anger issues or something instead of blowing shit up.” Tony squeezed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders, trying to head off the impending migraine.  “For the record, I’m doing this to stop Hydra, not to help you or your cyborg assassin lover, understand? Stay the fuck away from me. I’m tired of cleaning up your messes.”  He knocked on the door to be let out without looking back.

***

            “Sir, there is someone attempting to gain entry on the balcony.”

            “On the balcony? Again? Who is it this time?”  JARVIS pulled up the security feed. Tony swore and threw his wrench across the room before stomping upstairs, texting Loki along the way.  When he got upstairs Barnes was standing there looking ominous as hell in his all black clothes, hair a dark curtain around his face and metal arm glinting in the moonlight. At least he had ditched the mask and goggles this time.

            “What the fuck do you want? Here to complete the set? The Stark Trifecta?” Tony snarled, speaking loud enough to be heard through the door. “I felt like my instructions to Steve were pretty clear, to stay as _far away_ –“

            “Steve didn’t make it out.”  Barnes' voice was flat and rough, cool grey eyes expressionless. 

            Tony stared at him in disbelief.  “What?”

            “Steve didn’t-”

            “Shut up, I heard you the first time.” He sighed and rested his head on the cold glass.  In his pocket his phone buzzed.  Loki would be home soon.  “Well, shit.  JARVIS, turn up the lights 50%.”  Tony glared at Barnes for a long moment before he opened the door and stood back to let Barnes in.  “Guess you better come inside.  Just FYI, I’m not as helpless as my parents were, in case you’re thinking about trying something. How did you get up here, anyway?”

            “Climbed.”

            “Climbed?” Tony echoed, incredulous.  He went outside on the balcony and looked down at the wall of the Tower.  “You son of a bitch, you put holes in my building.  I hate you.”

            Barnes grunted and after a quick glance around sat down on a couch.  “So what’s the plan?”

            “Right now, the plan is we wait until Loki gets here, because he’s the one who apparently decided to adopt you as a stray.”  Tony pulled a bar stool into the kitchen and sat on the other side of the bar so that Barnes would have to go over the coffee table, an armchair, and the bar to reach him, giving him enough time to call the Oh Shit Suit.

            Unless Barnes had a gun. Dammit.  Tony eyed him but didn't see anything, for what that was worth, but for right now, he seemed content to sit, so still and unmoving that he was creeping Tony out.  He texted Loki.  _Just out of curiosity, how long do you think it will be until you get here?_

            “Mind if I sharpen some knives?” 

            “Are you planning on throwing them at me?”

            “No.”

            Tony shrugged before he realized that Barnes probably couldn’t see him.  “Fine. Whatever.”  From one of the many pockets in that murder bondage getup Barnes pulled out what looked like a KaBar and a whetstone.  He watched the almost hypnotizing rhythm of Barnes sharpening a knife for a few minutes and got up to pour himself a drink before sitting back down again.  “So,” Tony said into the uneasy quiet.

            “So,” Bucky repeated.

            “You murdered my parents.”

            Bucky’s rhythmic movements hesitated for a moment. “Yeah. I did.”

            Tony knew this was just pouring salt in a wound, but he couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth.  “Why?”

            For a long time, Bucky didn’t look up from where he was moving the knife in steady movements over the whetstone.  His arm whirred as the plates on it recalibrated. Tony’s jaw tightened and hands curled into fists the longer that Bucky was quiet, until the man sat back and brushed his hair out of his face.  “Steve said there’s a computer that lives in your walls, right?  That you made?” Bucky used his knife to gesture vaguely at the ceiling.

            “JARVIS? Yeah. So what?”

            “If you told him to kill someone, would he?”

            Tony opened his mouth and then closed it, stumped.  “Yeah, I could make him kill someone. I guess.”  JARVIS could drop an elevator or lock someone away from food or water, theoretically, but the idea made Tony’s skin crawl.  It would feel like training a seeing eye dog to be in a dog fighting ring.  He took a long swallow of whiskey to burn the thought away.

            “Little bit of reprogramming, right? Tinker with his brain? How do you think he’d feel about that? Think he even has feelings?”  That knife vanished, only to be replaced with a longer one, all black except for the thin sliver of silver along the blade.  The rhythmic swishing started up again.  “Or maybe that flashy metal suit you’re fond of flying around in.  If it could think, how do you think it would feel about you using it to kill so many people?”

            Tony buried his face in his hands and concentrated on breathing.  Between one breath and the next, he felt Loki appear beside him with a movement of displaced air.  After a moment, he felt Loki’s hand on his back, solid and centering.  “Just say what you're trying to say.”

            “I’m saying I don’t know why I had to kill any of those people. I mean, I didn’t then. They didn’t tell me why any more than you would justify yourself to one of your machines. Now, I could make an educated guess.  So could you.” His movements became rough and jerky until he expelled a long breath and hung his head.  “But I did it, so…”

            Tony nodded, throat too tight to speak.  After a moment the shhhhik noise of the whetstone started again. Bucky cleared his throat, still staring down at the knife’s movement against the stone.  “Does that mean you aren’t going to help me go get Steve? Because of what I did, you’re going let them lock him up in that underwater hellhole-” the whetstone in his left hand cracked in half.

            “Calm down, Terminator,” Tony scowled.  “I haven’t left Steve high and dry yet and I’m not going to start now.”  Loki’s hand slid up his spine to the back of his neck, squeezing lightly and making Tony realize that he was holding his shoulders so tightly that he was getting a headache. He exhaled and forced his shoulders to relax as he drained the rest of his glass, turning to rest his head on Loki's shoulder for a moment before straightening.  “I’m going back to the lab and I’ll find out where they are holding him,” he announced, grabbing the pot of lukewarm coffee from the counter. “Please, don’t in any way make yourself at home.”  He knew he was being spiteful but it was either that or give in to the itch of lingering rage and hate that made him want to throw the coffee pot at the assassin sitting in his living room.  It was much easier to pretend to be a reasonable adult about the whole situation when the cause of the situation wasn’t in his _home._

 

            Loki watched Stark storm back down to the lab and hesitated for a moment before he came out of the kitchen to sit across from Barnes, studying him intently.  The man looked less burdened than he had the last time Loki had seen him.  Apparently the vengeance spree had been a cathartic experience for him.  “I confess, I’m surprised you came here,” Loki said eventually.

            “Nowhere else to go.  Can’t do it by myself.”  Barnes shrugged self-consciously. “If nothing else, I thought Stark would still be interesting in stopping Hydra.  But we need to be quick.  I don’t _think_ they have a chair in the Raft, but…”  He had slowly stopped sharpening his knife and was now just staring down at his hands, thoughts clearly far away.

            Loki remembered the chair and the unnatural blankness of Barnes’s mind.  A man like Captain Rogers serving an organization like Hydra did not bear thinking about.  “It won’t come to that.  Rogers still has an ally in Stark, if not a friend.”

            Barnes grunted and went back to sharpening his knife on the fractured whetstone in his hands, strokes shorter and faster now.  “Steve told me about you, but I gotta say, what he said doesn’t really square with I’ve seen.”

            Loki raised an eyebrow and lifted a shoulder carelessly.  “I’m sure Captain Rogers still considers me a villain.  He’s not wrong.”

            Bucky finally looked up at him.  Loki was surprised by both the lack of wariness in his gaze and the wry intelligence there.  “Yeah?  You saved me from Hydra and told Steve where to find me as part of an evil master plan?”

            “I went there to kill you," Loki pointed out. "For what you did and what you almost did to Stark when you first fought.”

            “But you didn’t.” Bucky smirked as he tucked that knife away and drew a new one, this one broad and oddly curved. “And then you helped a lot more than you had to, by sending us to Dr. Strange. I think you maybe you got a soft spot for a hard luck case.  Or a pretty face,” he said with a broad wink.  "Dr. Strange had a lot to say about you as well."

            Loki had to laugh despite himself.  “Perhaps I wanted to have you both in my debt.”

            “To what, kill someone for you?” He snorted and put the new knife away after testing the edge on his thumb, drawing a thin line of blood that was healed by the time he sheathed the knife and wiped the blood away.  “From the shit they  _both_  say about you, I can’t imagine that you need help with that.”

            Loki only made an amused noise, drumming his fingers lightly on the arm of the chair. “Have you recovered all of your memories?”

            “Mostly.  According to Dr. Strange, I’ve probably gotten back as much as I’m gonna.” Bucky shrugged expressively and rested his elbows on his knees.  Loki saw a glint of silver where the sleeve on his left arm didn’t quite cover the skin before the glove started. “But it doesn’t really matter.”

            “No?”

            “Well, I’ve done the crying and feeling bad part, and then we did the killing and vengeance bit, so now I’m just ready to, you know, move on. Make new memories to replace the ones they burned outta me.”

            “With Captain Rogers?”

            “Yeah.  If he’ll have me.  I’m gonna bust him from this swimming pokey they took him to and we’ll figure it out from there.”

            The room went quite for a while until Stark came back up the stairs, coffee pot still in his hand, level unchanged.  He shoved it at Loki.  “I’m getting Thor his own goddamn coffee maker,” he said then sat down heavily in an unoccupied armchair and pulled out his phone. “I found Steve.  Secretary Ross wasn’t even hiding the fact that they had him in the Raft, and said no one was getting in to see him.  Even his lawyer will have to teleconference.”

            Barnes eyed him, a little confused by his air of unconcern.  “But you have a plan?”

            “Of course.  But we’re going to need some help,” Stark replied, waving his phone.

            “Help for what?” Thor asked as he stepped off the elevator.

***

            Loki crouched in the floor of the helicopter, staring out the open door at the choppy waves below.  “It’s here,” he said, raising his voice over the roar of the blades and the wind and the ocean.

            “Everyone ready?” When he saw everyone’s nods Tony put the helicopter on autopilot and put on his retractable gauntlets.  He’d seen the blueprints for the Raft, and his full suit would be difficult to maneuver in those hallways. “Ok, bring it up.”

            Bucky was watching the water, Thor was looking up at the stormy sky, and Stephen was watching Loki so avidly that Tony half expected him to start taking notes right there in the helicopter.  Loki’s eyes were half closed as he stared downward and green light seemed to coalesce out of the stormy darkness and trace lines down Loki’s shoulders to his hands, curling around them like friendly snakes as they grew brighter.  He reached out with one hand while the other tightened into fist, and after a minute the water below them began to boil away from that something coming to the surface. A ring of lights became visible and eventually they could all see the glistening metal of the Raft emerge, creating frothy white waves in the dark sea.

            “Impressive,” Stephen said when it was done.  One of Loki’s hands was still clenched into a fist, holding the Raft steady at the surface.  Tony brought the helicopter lower until it was hovering just above the Raft, drifting left and right alarmingly in the storm.

            “Helicopter bay doors now,” Tony shouted as Bucky helped lower Stephen to the surface of the raft. Loki nodded and Tony let Bucky lower him as well, hunching his shoulders against the rain.  Thor and Bucky jumped down after him and soon a pair of hatch doors in front of them began to open slowly with the loud sound of complaining metal and gears.

            After that, everything had to move quickly, hopefully before Raft security could put up a coordinate response to their incursion.  While Loki held the submarine in place in case they needed to escape back to the helicopter, Stephen and Thor were going to be the diversion while Barnes and Tony got Steve.

            Once Tony got to the Raft computers, it was the work of a moment to find Steve’s cell, and then he was trailing far behind Barnes while he raced down the corridors.   Unfortunately, even though Barnes was leaving a slew of unconscious guards in his wake, the alarms started going off far too soon for Tony’s piece of mind.  He skidded to a halt in front of a computer terminal a few cells down from where Barnes was already starting to rip reinforced steel bars from the front wall of Steve’s cell.  Tony’s fingers found a USB port and pulled a flash drive from his pocket.

            “Hey! You guys busting him out?”  Someone said from behind him.  Tony didn’t even glance over his shoulder.

            “That’s the plan, yeah,” Tony called out, trying to concentrate on the computer terminal in front of him.  The flash drive he connected to the monitor had done a good job bypassing the initial security, but trying to navigate this second rate excuse for an operating system was pissing him off.

            “Good, that’s good.  Captain America shouldn’t be down here.  So, uh, wanna bust me out while you’re at it?  Because I don’t think I’m really supposed to be here, either.”

            Baffled, Tony turned around to look at the guy who was talking. “Who are you?”

            “Scott Lang.  I was working with Hank Pym? Do you know him? He can vouch for me, I’m not some crazy, I swear, it was all just a misunderstanding.”  The man held his hands out, and to be fair, he really didn’t look all that menacing. Average brown hair, average brown eyes, and an open, honest looking face.  For what that was worth.

            “Hank Pym?” Tony repeated absently, turning back to the computer and finding the controls for the alarm systems and the AV systems and shutting everything down.  The name sounded a little familiar, but not enough to let some random prisoner out on a whim. “Look, we’re kind of under a time crunch here, so-“

            “Ok, ok, I get it. You don’t know me.  But you know, you should really get out that guy over there, he’s just a kid.  He’s not handling it too well down here.”

            “A kid? Who?”  Scott pointed to a cell across the room and diagonal from his.  Tony gave up on the controls and hurried over to take a look at the other prisoner.  On the bunk in the room was what looked like a gangly teenager, curled up and staring blankly at the opposite wall.

            “Jesus Christ, how old are you?” Tony blurted.  The boy looked up and it was a moment before his eyes focused.

            “Who-? Are you…You’re Tony Stark! I mean, Mr. Stark.  What- what are you doing here?”  He pressed his face to the glass to look around.  “They didn’t get you too, did they?”

            “They? Who are- never mind, later.  Barnes, I got another door for you!” Tony shouted down the hallway, where the sound of Bucky’s metal arm punching through a door paused for a moment before he called back “in a second, I’m almost done!”

            “What’s your name, kid?” Tony eyed the bars in front of the thick ballistic glass that formed the front wall of cells in the Raft, and got to work with his gauntlets to start weakening where they attached to the frame.

            “Uh, Peter. Peter Parker.”  

            “We’re going to get you out, ok? Me and my friends.  They might look a little…odd, so just, you know, roll with it.”  The metal was starting to glow red, making Tony back away from the heat.

            Bucky came down the hallway at a brisk trot, Steve following closely on his heels. “What is it? Who is this guy?”

            Steve looked around his shoulder and saw exactly what Tony had.  “Doesn’t matter, Bucky, he’s a kid, no way he should be in here.”

            “Alright, gimme some room. Back up, kid.”

            “Just give me something to grab and I can help, I promise I’m stronger than I look.”

            “You’d have to be,” Bucky muttered, getting a grip on one of the metal bars in front of Peter’s cell and yanking it out of the wall with a quick jerk of his metal arm. “You’re almost as shrimpy as Steve used to be.” He left it there and moved on to the next, letting Steve reach over his head and bend it out of the way to make enough space for Peter to eventually get out. When all of the bars were out of the way, he blew out a quick breath and started punching the thick, bullet-proof plexiglass that was the next layer of security. He started at the bottom and before too long there was enough of a gap between the glass and the wall that the teenager could get his fingers in it, and true to his word he braced his feet on the wall _upside down_ and started to pull. Bucky gaped at him sticking to the wall as if gravity suddenly worked sideways, before he shook his head and got back to work.

            Overhead, more yellow lights began to flash.  “Stephen? Thor? Everything alright over there? We’re almost done,” Tony said through his earbud.

            “Well, I’m not having the most fun ever but nothing dire,” Stephen answered through the communicator, breath coming slightly faster.  “I think Thor’s enjoying himself.”

            In front of him Bucky and Peter worked together and with one more shove/pull the plexiglass panel gave way completely.  “Jeez, kid, you weren’t kidding, you really ate your Wheaties this morning. Who are you again?” Tony hustled them down the hallway, Steve in front and Bucky bringing up the rear.

             “Can you just let Hank know I’m here? My name is Lang, Scott Lang!” Scott called out as they hurried away.  Tony winced at the plaintive tone in his voice. 

            “I won’t forget, Scott!” Peter called back. “I’m sorry! He really is a good guy, Mr. Stark, he was in here before-”

            “Escape first, talk later, buddy,” Bucky grunted, stepping over a body as they got closer to where Stephen and Thor were holding the control room.  Inside, in an impressive display of concentration, Stephen was holding open a portal to Stark’s tower while also holding half a dozen Raft agents at bay with shield as Thor tossed them around like rag dolls.

            “What-” Peter stared at the portal in surprised confusion. Tony stepped through first, gesturing for him to follow, but eventually Bucky had to shove him through with a roll of his eyes.  Thor and Steve followed and then Stephen was last, closing the portal in the face of some very confused prison guards.

            “I swear to God, if we stopped to answer every time someone said 'what the fuck is that' these days we’d never get anything done,” Bucky said.  He turned to Steve, giving him a once over before pulling him into a tight hug.  “Glad you’re ok, you idiot.”

            “You too, Bucky,” Steve said, gathering him close.  “I’m glad you got out.”

            “That is a conversation for later, asshole.”

            Tony looked away, jaw a little tight, and spoke into his communicator. “Loki, we’re all out, you can let it go now.  The helicopter has autopilot, it will be here in a few hours.”

            “Who is this?” Peter jumped at the unexpected voice and swung at Loki when he appeared right behind him. Loki caught his fist before it could land, and they both stared at the other in surprise for a moment before Peter stepped back with a muttered “um, sorry.”

            “He says his name is Peter Parker, but he hasn’t really said who he is yet,” Tony said, eyeing the kid curiously.  “So how about we all sit down, have a drink, and figure out what the hell is going on here because something seems a little squirrely.”

 

            Halfway through Peter’s story, right around when he was tasered on a side street and hustled into a black van, Tony had to get up a get a drink.  Peter faltered until Steve looked at him encouragingly and patted him on the back, giving him his best "Captain America believes in you" that still somehow worked despite the lumberjack beard and prison pajamas. The kid kept his eyes focused on his hands, picking at an invisible mark on his palm, while everyone else was watching him intensely.  “Since then, I’ve seen maybe two or three other people come through? Past my cell, at least. I don’t know if they’re keeping others somewhere else.”

            “Well, fuck.” Tony drained his glass and scrubbed his face in his hands.  “How in the hell did we miss this? You’re from what, Queens?” Peter nodded. “Shit.  That’s in my own back yard, and I didn’t notice a damn thing.  How many people has Hydra been kidnapping right under our noses?”

            “We need to tell Director Hill and Natasha,” Steve said.  “Then we should get them out, before Hydra can do whatever they intend to do with them.”

            Tony picked up his tablet from the coffee table. “Well, I have a list of the current inmates in the Raft that I got while we were there, but I only recognize a few of them.  How are we supposed to know the heroes from the crazies?”  Tony pushed a button and laid the tablet flat on the table so the image on the screen popped up for everyone to see.  “Like this guy, Matthew Murdock.  Internet says he’s a defense attorney, but according to his records he was responsible for blowing up some warehouses in Hell’s Kitchen and killing a bunch of Russians.” He waved a hand through the air and the image shifted.  “Or this guy, Luke Cage, who’s been bouncing in and out of prison for a while now.”

            Stephen leaned forward and reached for the tablet.  “Can I look at the list? We’ve had some guys go quiet lately and I haven’t had a chance to track them down yet.”  Tony slid the tablet towards him as the room went quiet.

            “I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way, then.  I don’t know if I would have agreed to become an Avenger if I had known how much time I would spend manning a keyboard.”  Tony stood, then realized he was the only one to do so. “Seriously? Am I the only one in the building who…” he trailed off, looking at the expressions on the faces of two space aliens, two men born in the 1910s, and a sorcerer. “Goddammit.  _I’m_ going to have to do this the hard way.”

            “I can help, Mr. Stark!” Peter jumped to his feet, almost tripping over Stephen’s feet until he pulled them out of the way.  “I’m pretty good with computers.”

            “Alright, come on kid, let’s go hack the Justice Department.” He looked Peter up and down, frowning at the bright blue prison uniform.  "Let me see if I can get you a change of clothes first."

            “Now who is collecting strays?” Loki murmured with a small smile as Tony walked by his chair. 

 

            For all of his youthful energy, Peter made it halfway through Tony’s hacking session before his eyelids started drooping, so Tony shooed him over to the shop couch and forced him to take a nap.  He fished out a slice of cold pizza from the fridge and rubbed his eyes before he turned back to the computers.  The Justice Department hadn’t shed any light on the Raft inmates, so right around the time Peter fell asleep on his couch Tony realized they were going to have to go through each file and look into every arrest warrant, every trial, and try to find places where two plus two equaled superheroes who had been kidnapped and taken to a supermax prison.

            Tony switched windows to see if whoever Hank Pym was had responded to his emails and noticed an alert blinking in the corner of his screen.  He took a big greasy bite of his pizza and wiped his fingers on his pants before he opened up the alert and almost choked on his food when he read it.  “Jesus, JARVIS, you finally break that biometric encryption and all you do is give me a little blinky red light?  How long ago did you crack this?”

            “Sir, that is standard protocol notification for the successful resolution of a subroutine. Also, the biometric encryption was not broken.  The appropriate biometric signature was provided forty-two hours ago, uploaded by Natasha Romanoff.”

            “Yeah? Good job, Nat. Who was the winner?”

            “Secretary Alexander Pierce.”

            “Oh, boy.” Not surprising, Tony thought as he sat back in his chair.  That slippery bastard’s name has been popping up all over the place with Hydra.  But this was the first piece of actionable evidence they'd found against him, so that was a ray of sunshine in the dark. “Alright, so what was on it?”

            “From what I can determine it is a targeting algorithm.”  A swift moving stream of numbers and symbols flashed across his screen, pertinent portions of the Python programming language highlighted in red.  Tony pulled them aside to a separate folder to parse later.

            “Well, it was supposed to be part of Project Insight, so I guess that makes sense.” Tony rocked back and forth in his chair as he chewed.  “Alright, can you run the algorithm and see what pops out?”

            “Yes, sir.” 

            While JARVIS worked Tony finished the slice and wiped his hands clean on a shop rag before getting a bottle of water from the mini-fridge.  “Alright, JARVIS, what’s the verdict?”

            “Sir, there are already two million targets and counting.”

            Tony went still, water spilling as his hand tightened on the bottle, the food turning into a leaden lump in his stomach. “Two… _million?_ Targets?”

            “Three million now, sir.”

            For a long minute Tony could only blink. “Am I on the list?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Steve?”

            “Yes, sir. All of your frequent contacts are on the list. With the exception of Loki and Thor, they do not meet a sufficient number of the algorithm’s parameters to be included.”

            “Hey, JARVIS, could you tell everyone to come down here?” he asked vaguely, still trying to process what JARVIS was telling him.  “What’s the count up to now?”

            “Six and a half million.”

            “And it’s still going?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Holy shit.” Tony rubbed his hands over his face and fisted them in his hair, resting his elbows on the desk to stare down at his keyboard.  “Shit, shit, shit.” His chest started to get tight so he stood suddenly, sending his chair rolling across the floor to clang against a lab table as he started to pace, tension crawling across his shoulders.

            “I’m awake!” At the sound of the chair, loud in the otherwise quiet lab, Peter sat up so quickly that he fell off the couch. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

            Tony turned on his heel and almost ran into Loki. “Stark? What is it?”

            “Everyone hold on a second,” he said as Peter came around his desk to peer at the computer screen, giving Loki a wide berth. “Hey JARVIS, is the algorithm finished?”

            “Yes sir. Final count was approximately twenty million targets.”

            Loki was staring at the computer, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Twenty million what?”

            Tony braced himself over the desk, feeling a little lightheaded.  “I need to talk this through to make sure I’m not crazy, because if I’m right, we have a _huge_ fucking problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't look at this chapter anymore. Here, it's yours! Next up, EPIC FIGHT SCENE.


	12. Battle of the Helicarriers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the storm hits, it hits all at once.

            After Tony explained the algorithm and Project Insight, there was a long period of shocked silence. 

            “So what are we going to do?” Peter asked finally.  He looked overwhelmed, like he just wanted to go back to bed and try waking up again in case this was a bad dream.

            Tony fisted his hands in his hair and stared down at his desk. “Gimme a second, I’m thinking.”

            “We can't let the helicarriers go online, not with that targeting algorithm.”

            “ _I know,_ Steve _._ " Tony pushed back from the table and stood.  "We need more information.  Everyone out, I'm going to make some calls." Tony shooed everyone out of his lab, following them up the stairs and going to the kitchen in search of coffee.  He emptied the filter and started a new pot before going out on the balcony with his phone, closing the door firmly on Peter when he tried to follow him outside. First he called Maria, who, weirdly, went straight to voicemail.  Then he called Fury, who also went to voicemail.  The generally uneasy feeling in his stomach sharpened to outright dread as he called Rhodey.  He breathed a sigh of relief when the person who picked up Rhodey's office phone was willing to track him down when he found out who was calling. After a few minutes’ wait Rhodey’s voice was drawling, “Funny you should call, Tony.”

            “Yeah? Why’s that?”

            “I just got out of a very interesting meeting.  Have you heard that Steve Rogers was recently broken out of the Raft?”  Tony turned to face the window to the living room and saw Steve arguing about something with Barnes.

            “I haven’t been watching the news,” Tony said evasively. Rhodey’s snort of amusement said that he recognized the non-answer.

            “Well, the surveillance cameras were mysteriously offline and the witness accounts are interesting to say the least, but the evidence is that it was done by someone with more-than-human strength. Though that’s not you, huh?”

            “Nope. Regular human strength here.” 

            “And you don’t know how people might have gotten lightning burns inside a submarine?”  In one of the armchairs Thor was sipping coffee, watching as Barnes explained something that required quite a number of extravagant gestures, the metal of his arm flashing in the sun.

            “Is that all you guys talked about for the whole meeting?  Seems below your pay grade,” Tony said, clearing his throat and turning away from the windows to look at the city, where early morning clouds were scudding across the sky all peaceful like.  “I was actually calling with a question.”

            “Go ahead.”

            “What do you know about Project Insight?”

            There was a long silence on Rhodey’s end, and when he spoke again there was an odd note in his voice. “Why are you asking about Project Insight?”

            “Uh, why are you asking about why I’m asking?” Tony stomach dropped and he started pacing. He put a hand over his other ear to block out the sound of the wind and the city. “What’s going on, Rhodey?”

            “Secretary Pierce was the one that called the meeting. As a result of the breakout, he convinced the president to call for a state of emergency and moved up the launch date of Project Insight.  He recalled all personnel last night and they are clearing the airspace over DC as we speak.  So can I ask again, why are you asking?” 

            Tony turned on his heel and headed back inside. “On a related note, what are you doing in, say, an hour? Feel like maybe taking down some helicarriers before Hydra uses them to murder millions of people?”

            Rhodey went quiet for a long, disbelieving minute. “Ok, Tony,” Rhodey said finally.  “I’m going to trust that you have a good goddamn explanation for that sentence when I see you.”

            “I haven’t let you down yet, have I? Bring your party suit.” Tony hung up and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. “So, the helicarrier launch has been moved up because some super-powered criminals broke out of the Raft.  Everyone get suited up, we are flying the unfriendly skies in about an hour."

            “Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark,” Peter called, jogging to catch up to Tony as he headed for the lab while everyone else scattered. “What should I do right now? All of my gear is-”

            Tony barked out a laugh. “Gear? You don't need gear. You’re sitting this one out, kid.”

            “No way, Mr. Stark.  I’m going to help.”

            Tony turned and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. “You aren’t even out of high school! I’m not sending you out there to fight these guys, they are way out of your league.  Go home and keep your head down, ok? We got this,” he said, turning away.

            Peter grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled him around to face him again with a show of his surprising strength. “I may still be a kid to you, but I was also a kid when they put me in that jail and I’ll still be a kid if you lose and they come after me again. Also, they’re going to go after my friends and my family.” He realized that he was still holding Tony’s arm and he let go self-consciously, looking down at his feet before looking back up at Tony.  “I know I can help, Mr. Stark.  When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen…They happen because of you,” he said, and the look in his eye said that this was a lesson he had learned the hard way. 

            Tony ran a hand tiredly over his face. “This is a really bad idea.” But Peter just stood there in his way with a mutinous expression on his face and Jesus, had he seen that look in the mirror enough as a teenager.  He sighed and hoped he wasn’t making the worst decision of his life. “Fine, but on one condition – you stay next to one of us and keep your distance from the bad guys.  I’ve seen your YouTube videos, do your webby thing but for God’s sake don’t get too close.”

            “Stay next to- I don’t need a babysitter, Mr. Stark!” Peter protested.

            “Oh, you got what you wanted and now you’re complaining?” Tony scowled as he turned and continued down the stairs to his lab. “I found you in a prison that makes supermaxes look like baby jail.  Of course you need a babysitter.”

            “Mr. Rogers was there too, does he need a babysitter?” Peter was walking so close behind Tony that he thought the kid was going to step on his heels.

            “Steve needs multiple babysitters,” Tony muttered as Peter followed him into his lab. “Hey, JARVIS, are Peter’s new duds ready?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Tony turned and smiled at Peter’s wide-eyed look.  “That get-up you were wearing in those YouTube videos was atrocious, kid, so while you were cat-napping on my couch I whipped you up something a little better.  It doesn’t have everything I would want to put it in, but…” Peter still looked speechless and like he was going to cry.  “Here,” Tony said, dumping the Spider-Man suit in his arms.  JARVIS had cut down one of Tony’s flight suits to Peter’s measurements and reinforced it with gold-titanium alloy wires, enough to provide protection without sacrificing mobility. Tony had installed just enough electronics to enable JARVIS to download a simplistic version of himself so that Tony could keep tabs on him.  That Tony was already designing Spider-Man Mach II was a secret he'd take to his grave. “Now get outta here, get something to eat before we go, I need to get some stuff ready myself.” When Peter hesitated, Tony put his hands on Peter’s shoulders, turned him, and pushed him out the laboratory door, locking it behind him.

            Loki smiled at him from where he’d been leaning against one of Tony’s work tables, hidden from Peter’s eyes. “Am I making a mistake letting him come?” Tony asked uncertainly.

            Loki shook his head and held his hand out for Tony to come closer. “He is strong and has the heart of a warrior.  He’ll survive,” he said as he pulled Tony into his arms.

            “Survive?  That’s not terribly comforting.”

            “Is that what you want? Comforting lies?”

            “Maybe. Look, Loki, before we go…”  Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly, running a hand over the back of his neck as he kept his eyes fixed around the level of Loki’s collarbone.  “We both know that this situation is going to go to hell in a handbasket.  There’s no way Hydra is just going to let us waltz in there and disable all of these helicarriers without a fight.  So I just wanted to say, if it comes down to saving me or finishing the fight, I want you to finish the fight, ok?  I need to know you’re going to save all those people if I’m not gonna make it.”

            Loki was silent long enough that Tony finally had to look up at him, catching an anguished look on his face before it was shuttered away.  “I can’t make that promise, Stark,” Loki said finally, hands coming up to frame Tony’s face.  “Do you think I would care one whit about this realm if you are no longer in it?”

            “What do you think it will do to me to know that I lived while twenty million people died?” Tony returned, voice raw.  “Tell me that Hydra won’t survive to threaten anyone again.”

            “That I can promise,” Loki said, and there was the promise of a brutal vengeance in his eyes even as his thumbs were gently stroking Tony’s cheekbones.

            “And if you want to carve ‘RIP Tony Stark’ into the moon, I wouldn’t mind that either,” Tony said with a thin smile, turning his face to kiss Loki’s palm.  Loki smiled and pressed a kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth, then his temple, and as Tony’s eyes drifted closed, he kissed each of his eyelids. It was soft, gentle in a way Tony rarely saw in Loki; had they been different people maybe this could have been their first kiss, rather than their adrenaline fueled affair, tasting of whiskey and lightning and danger.   

            Pff. Boring. Tony opened his eyes to see that Loki was watching him, gaze unreadable. He tilted his face up for a kiss, nipping at Loki’s bottom lip as he started to strip out of his clothes.

            “Remember our first time?” Tony asked as he threw his shirt on the floor and started pushing Loki backwards towards the couch.

            “Of course,” Loki said with a sharp, hot smile, eyes raking down Tony’s body as Tony kicked off his jeans.

            “I was more than a little afraid you were going to kill me.” Tony shoved him down on the couch and climbed in his lap, searching for the opening to Loki’s pants. Loki curved a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer.

            “No, I needed you too much to kill you then,” he said, voice deep and rough, before he tilted his head for another kiss, the hot, slick glide of his mouth and tongue almost making Tony lose his train of thought.

            “And now?” Tony said against his lips. 

            Loki's hand tightened on the back of his neck while he pressed his other palm framed the arc reactor. “Now I need you even more.”

            “Oh God,” Tony said with a breathless laugh, shivering when Loki raked his nails down his back. He managed to open Loki's pants and slide his hand inside, stroking the hardness there. “Now I know I’m going to die.”

            Loki made a noise of derision that turned into a different kind of noise when Tony ground down against him, enjoying the feel of leather against his bare skin. He wrapped his arms around Tony and turned to lay him on the couch, settling between Tony’s thighs.  With one hand he captured Tony’s and held them against the arm of the couch as he started to roll his hips against Tony, drawing a moan out of them both. “With three infinity stones at my disposal, if you think I will let you do something so banal as to die you are mistaken,” he growled, then he hitched Tony's hips higher and proceeded to drive Tony out of his mind.    

 

           Forty minutes later, Tony stomped back up the stairs to the living room in his suit, helmet under his arm and already tired despite a bracingly cool shower and enough coffee to bathe a cat in.  Everyone was already there and almost as one they turned to look at him expectantly. “Guess this is where they would usually give a speech if this was a movie, right? Cap?”

           “No, Tony, I think you should do the honors.”

           Tony stared at him, narrowing his eyes slightly at the thought that giving a rousing speech before battle was an  _honor_ instead of an opportunity to sound like an asshole. Fuck, to Steve it probably was, he probably practiced rousing speeches in front of the mirror while shaving.  Back when he did shave, the lumberjack-looking bastard.  “Okay then. Uh, well.  You all know the plan, but we all know how often things go to plan.  So in the end, do your best to stop the bad guys and not die.” He looked around at everyone staring at him.  “We’re all here because we were good people and then bad shit happened to us, and we each decided to get up and not let that bad thing happen to anyone else.  Today we have a chance to no-shit save the world – again for some of us, I promise I’ll really make T-shirts this time -  so if you feel like you’ve been that bad shit that happened to people,” Tony glanced down at his feet and ran a hand over the back of his neck before he looked back up at all the eyes on him, “then here’s your chance to make it right. So, you know…go team.”

           There was an expectant pause, and then Bucky said “That was  _terrible_ ” right as Peter was saying “That was  _awesome_ ” so Tony just rolled his eyes with a loud groan.  “Let’s just go already, Christ.  Loki?”

          Almost before Tony finished talking a jagged orange circle of sparking light sliced the air next to Loki.  The scene on the other side was chaos; Stephen was standing with his back to the portal, arms out as he held a bright gold shield against a squad of black clad gunmen, the  _rattatat_  of small arms fire echoing through Tony's living room. “Loki! We have a problem,” Stephen called over his shoulder.  “Hydra's after the Eye!” 

            Loki cursed and took a step towards the portal before hesitating. “Go, Loki," Tony said when he looked back. "That’s probably the only thing on Earth that could be more important than this.” Loki opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but in the end he just gave a sharp nod and disappeared through the portal.  Before it closed Tony felt a tug at the base of his stomach and the bridge was replaced with the cold concrete walls and ubiquitous, mass-produced tile flooring of SHIELD's sublevels where the rest of their team was waiting. 

            Tony took a deep breath and tried to control the sudden spike of anxiety at the fact that they hadn’t even started and were already down one of their strongest fighters.  “Alright everybody. You know what to do.”

***

            Kamar Taj was an assault on his senses, the air ringing with the silent noise of spells being cast and acrid with the scent of power.  There were bodies littering the floor and blood on the ancient stones; from the looks of it, the ones who brought guns to a magic fight died first.

            “Loki!” Strange shouted from his left, waving. “This way.” Strange hurried in front of him, leading him deeper into sanctuary.  Loki noticed they were heading away from the sound of the fighting, which seemed to be centered around the library. “Somehow they managed to suborn some of my sorcerers.  They went to raid the library, so we are trying to hold them off there,” Strange explained when he saw Loki's curious glance.

            “How can we tell which are fighting for Hydra?”

            “Well, if they are attacking you, they are the bad guys.”  Just then, a man in dark brown robes stepped out from around a column and threw a shard of light at Loki like it was a spear. Loki deflected and raised his hands but Strange grabbed his arm. “Wait, not him!” He waved the attacker off, who glared but turned away. “I forgot some of us still think  _you’re_  a bad guy. So, for now, just…you know what, never mind.  I didn’t call you for that, we can handle them.  I called you because of this.”  He threw open the doors to a room at the center of the sanctuary, one that Loki had never been to before.  It had a high ceiling and was ringed with doors, each with a unique sigil above them, one of which Loki recognized as the one that crowned Strange’s residence. In the center of the room a dark-skinned man was holding the time gem, eyes narrowed with concentration.  Around him, in a rough circle, stood a handful of men from Strange’s order who all turned to stare at Loki when he entered.  “His name is Karl Mordo.  He was one of the longest serving members of Kamar Taj.  He got to the gem before we could stop him."

            “So I see.”  Around the man, Mordo, there was a bubble of bright green light and Loki could hear the deep, monotonous sound of a spell at the very edge of his senses, even though the room was otherwise hushed and silent.  Mordo had created an accelerated time field around himself and judging from the mummified, almost skeletal bodies inside the bubble he had caught more than one sorcerer in the field before the rest learned to keep their distance. While the rest of Kamar Taj may have been an active war zone, in here it was a tense stalemate.

            “Can you teleport inside and get the gem?” Strange asked hopefully.

            “I’m not sure what you know about theoretical physics, but based off several conversations with Stark about the nature of the space-time continuum if I did that I could potentially create a black hole,” Loki said mildly as he considered the problem. Mordo met his eyes and there was a sort of methodical madness in them, the cool rationality of a fanatic.  There would be no talking him out of this standoff.  “Also, he’s shielded,” he pointed out, gesturing at the glimmer of gold that could just barely be seen behind the green.

            “A black hole? Seriously?” Strange said incredulously. Loki just shrugged. Stark had had strong opinions of the wisdom of warping space and time in such close proximity.  “Christ. Ok then.  Um, since you’re immortal, can’t you just…” he gestured at the bubble, “walk in? If we clear the library first, there’s a ritual in there that can-”

            Loki was already shaking his head. “Strange, I am only immortal compared to humans. All he would have to do is accelerate the field, and I may become just another body on the floor.  Even if he didn’t, I’ve no desire to shorten my life by a few centuries if there is another option.”

            “What is the other option?”

            Then Loki probably uttered the scariest words Strange had ever heard: “I don’t know.”

***

            The first helicarrier went so smoothly that Tony almost cried in relief.  Sam and a newly shaved Barnes, who really didn’t look any less intimidating minus his hobo half-beard and curtain of dark hair, had stolen a couple of uniforms and marched right in behind Rhodey in his War Machine suit, managing to get in and out of the server room without drawing any suspicious attention. They weren't so lucky with the second one; it was closed up tight, all of the pressurized doors sealed closed as the turbines initialized.  Steve handed Sam what looked like a bulky jetpack and he started buckling the straps on over his borrowed uniform. Bucky stripped off his uniform to reveal the black leather and Kevlar of his favorite battle dress, hands checking the placement of his small armory’s worth of weapons with a speed borne of familiarity.  Peter was stretching.

            When they managed to batter their way inside, targeting the reinforced glass dome on the bottom of the helicarrier, there was a small army of uniformed men arrayed on the catwalks waiting for them.  In the center were three people that were distinctively out of uniform and smiling at Barnes like sharks that smelled blood in the water. These three all looked different from the neck up - one was black, one was a woman, and one was a generic white guy with buzzed hair - but they were identically built, with Barnes' distinctive broad shouldered musculature and their combat gear was clearly designed by the same leather-loving douchebag.  There was a moment of silence before the storm and then, almost as if on cue, the Hydra agents opened fire and Tony's team dove for cover.

            "So who are the three Winter Soldier wannabes?" Sam shouted over the sound of gunfire.  Protected from fire by a solid metal support pillar, Peter started climbing, clearly intending to get the drop on these guys.   Tony was glad that no one could see his face as he watched him climb, fighting down the urge to pull him off the wall and fly him all the way back to New York.

            "Winter Soldiers," Barnes said, ducking around the columns to return fire.  The three were using the cover fire to advance, clearly planning to flank them. "I trained them, they’re pretty fucking scary.  Imagine me but completely amoral.” 

            "Oh that's great.  So there's just the three of them?" Tony stepped out from behind the column, bullets pinging off his suit, and aimed a missile at the catwalks. For the next few minutes the sound of explosions and screaming metal was louder than gunfire, the he heard Barnes shout, "There were originally five."

            " _Five?_ " Barnes just shrugged and reloaded.  Steve's shield ricocheted around the room with a loud  _pong_ and one of the Soldiers stumbled as it hit him in the chest but he didn't go down.  "No, five, that's cool." Tony took a few deep breaths and then Rhodey was tapping him on the shoulder.                 

            “You take the left, I’ll take the right?” Rhodey suggested.  Tony gave him a thumbs up and took off with a blast of repulsor fire, lighting up the seemingly endless supply of Hydra agents.  In between the clouds of smoke and fire, Tony could see the others edging closer to the entrances that led to the rest of the helicarrier.  Two of the Winter Soldiers were dropping down to intercept Steve and Barnes just as an RPG clipped Tony’s shoulder and sent him spinning, the delayed explosion also throwing him backwards.  The suit’s automatic stabilizers managed to stop him before he slammed into a bulkhead but he had to hover there for a moment until the vertigo passed.

             “Sir, I know it’s a bad time I think there’s something you need to see,” JARVIS said as he flashed up an inset screen on the HUD.  It was Alexander Pierce giving a speech, broadcast by CNN, and the ticker at the bottom of the screen said, “Are Superheroes A Threat to Public Safety?”

             “What the hell? JARVIS, audio please.”

             Pierce’s smarmy voice filled his speakers, almost drowning out the sound of gunfire.  “ _It is clear that the individuals who broke into the Raft to release convicted criminals with superhuman abilities among the unsuspecting population were superhuman themselves. Their motives for doing so are unknown, so in anticipation that they may turn their abilities against the general public we have decided to fast forward the launch of Project Insight, three next-generation helicarriers designed with these threats in mind.  I am also working closely with Congressmen of both parties to propose legislation aimed at combating the threat of hostile superhumans in the future.  If lobbyists would argue that anyone who decides to buy a firearm should be a part of a national database, why should we do anything less with someone who can kill with their mind?_ ”

             At his words, Tony carefully came down to land on the nearest catwalk.  The dizziness returned as his thoughts zoomed out and as images rushed through his brain he suddenly got the sense that he could see all of Hydra’s plans, arrayed through space and time like dominoes; he could almost see the pattern as the tiles fell, tick tick tick, all of them playing their roles exactly how Hydra expected them to, falling in line like good little pawns until it was exit stage left, pursued by helicarrier.  “It’s a trap,” he said with the dawning realization that somewhere after Loki freed Bucky from Hydra, they’d been one step behind: the ambush in Central Asia, the footage of his parents’ death, Steve’s capture and the Raft – it had all been designed to rush them into making rash decisions, each one leading them deeper into Hydra’s plan.

             Tony turned to wave at Rhodey, trying to get his attention while bullets pinging off his armor and threatened to make him lose his train of thought.  Almost without looking, he fired a rocket at the catwalk of Hydra agents, sending them through the bottom of the helicarrier with a groaning crash of metal as Rhodey landed in front of him.

            He grabbed Rhodey’s shoulders and pulled him away from the firefight. “Rhodey! Rhodey, you have to find Pierce.”

            Rhodey stared at him. “What in the hell are you talking about? We’re kind of in the middle of something.”  

            “Rhodey, listen to me.” Tony started to put his faceplate up but Rhodey slammed it back down with an incredulous “ _what the fuck, Tony?_ ”  “No, listen.  Pierce planned for this. If we – _when_ we – take down the helicarriers, he’s going to get the country to declare war on superheroes. Well, superhumans, whatever. Don’t you see? He wants us to do this!”

            The miniature rocket launchers on Rhodey’s shoulders fired with a loud whistling noise, exploding somewhere off to the side.   “No,” Rhodey said finally.  “I still don’t understand.”

            Tony exhaled loudly in frustration.  Goddammit, would these people stop shooting at them so he could just _think_?   “Help me out here, JARVIS, this shouldn’t be taking us so long-“ then Tony felt a blaze of heat along his hip, followed by the cooling sensation of the first aid aerogel.

            “Sir, the integrity of the suit has been breached.”  Looking up, he saw the woman Winter Soldier pull the slide on a sniper rifle and salute him lazily, a small smile on her face as she loaded another armor piercing round into it.

            “Shit,” Tony breathed. “Rhodey, we gotta move!”

***

            “I have an idea,” Loki said finally, and Strange bit back a vehement " _Thank God"_.  “I’ll return in a moment.”

            Loki appeared next to Stark and only his quick reflexes prevented him from getting a metal fist to the face. “Shit, sorry Loki!” Stark said, and blasted a man off the metal bridge they were standing on.

            Loki waved off his apology. “Is the Destroyer ready?”

            “What? Um, yeah, mostly, but it’s not quite-“

            “That will have to be good enough.”   Loki took the dark paths to Stark’s lab to retrieve the Destroyer, and he realized what Stark had meant.  It appeared that all of the part required to function were present, but little of the armor; only the face plate and the chest plate surrounding the arc reactor were attached, giving the thing the bizarre, grotesque appearance of a man with no skin.

            Strange jumped and backed away when Loki suddenly reappeared with a robot so large that its head almost scraped the vaulted ceiling of the room.  “What the hell?” Strange tilted his head to look at the Destroyer.  “Holy shit, is this what Tony’s been building for you?”

            “Yes,” Loki said with satisfaction. “Now be still.”  He could feel Strange’s eyes on him as he put a hand on some of the exposed cables in the thing’s leg, reaching back in his memory for a spell he studied centuries ago.  The previous Destroyer had been animated solely by the power of Asgard’s throne, the same power that gave Gungnir its strength.  This one would be powered by both magic _and_ technology, once Loki finished the spell that would link it to the throne and allow whoever held Gungnir to control it.  After a few long minutes Loki stepped back, satisfied. It was a quick, sloppy spell, but it should suffice.  Looking up, he could see that the arc reactor, which normally glowed a pale blue, was now gold.

            “Ok, now what?” Strange said.  “Is that thing going to-“

            The Destroyer took two steps into the accelerated time field and backhanded Mordo, throwing him against the stone wall on the far side of the room. 

***

            As soon as he cleared a path for Peter and Natasha to get the server room, Tony set himself to guard their backs and opened another private channel to Rhodey, sending him the video footage he'd watched earlier. “Pierce is planning something big, and knowing Hydra, it’s going to be huge.  He’s been playing chess this whole time while we’ve been playing checkers, and if he’s sacrificing his queen –“ Tony gestured towards the helicarrier, then remembered that Rhodey couldn’t see him – “you know, these helicarriers, then that means he thinks he’s going to have us in checkmate soon.”  

            “Christ Tony, is he serious with this shit?” Rhodey said after a moment.  “So I need to find Pierce and somehow trick him into confessing that he’s Hydra?”

            “Exactly.  You have to be the one to go, you’re the only one of us that could get close enough to him and even possibly make him incriminate himself. ” Rhodey hesitated for a moment then with a muttered curse over the comms he was gone in a blaze of thruster fire. 

            Then, as if his departure was a signal they'd been waiting for, between one moment and the next the Hydra agents melted away and something began to broadcast over the speakers. Tony turned to see the Winter Soldiers began backing away from Steve and Barnes as JARVIS automatically started translating the words at the bottom of his HUD:  _longing, rusted, seventeen_. At the first one, Bucky shook his head like he was hearing an annoying noise, then he fell to his knees pressing his hands over his ears.  “Uh, Natasha, I think we have a problem.”

            “What is it?”  _Daybreak. Furnace._

            “Are you hearing this broadcast?  I don't know what it means but it’s making Barnes lose his shit.” When Steve tried to touch his arm, Barnes shoved him away, staggering to his feet.  _Nine. Benign_.  Barnes started running for the hole they’d made in the glass wall of the room but two of the Winter Soldiers tackled him while the other intercepted Steve when he tried to follow.  “The words are just nonsense, but-“

            “Get him out of here!” Natasha shouted, loud enough to make Tony flinch.  _Homecoming. One._   Tony could hear Barnes' roar of effort as he tried to break away from the Soldiers, but they had his metal arm in a lock. “He’s compromised!”

            “Compromised?” Tony echoed, baffled.  But Sam must have had a better idea of what was happening because he started moving immediately, jumping off a catwalk from somewhere above Tony and diving at the Soldiers.  _Freight car,_ the loudspeaker intoned before going silent.

            Barnes went limp. One of the Winter Soldiers stooped and said something in his ear, too far away for Tony’s speakers to pick up, but he saw Barnes’ mouth moving in response then he slowly got to his feet.   The Soldier fighting Steve disengaged and one turned on Tony while the others fired on Sam, who barrel rolled past them trying to reach Barnes.   At the last minute, Barnes dodged out of Sam’s reach and snatched him out of the air with a hand on his ankle, throwing him down onto the catwalk.  He stalked towards him while Sam scrambled to his feet and fired on him as tried to get back into the air.

            “Shit,” Natasha breathed into the comms. “I didn’t know this would happen, I swear.”  Tony turned away from Barnes to see that she was watching the fight from a higher catwalk, Peter by her side. She dropped down on the Soldier that was shooting at Tony, driving her electrified stingers into the woman’s neck. The woman went to her knees with a pained grimace but managed to reach up and grab Natasha's arms, wrenching them up and away.

            “ _Sam!”_  Steve screamed into the comms, and Tony looked back just in time to see Barnes heel kick Sam off the catwalk, minus a wing.  Sam tried to grab something as he fell but he was too far away; he went through the fractured glass and was plummeting to the river below.

            “I’ve got him!” Peter shouted, and Tony felt his hair grow white when the kid dived off the catwalk after him and disappeared.

            “Shit, Peter!” Tony dived after them both, finding them dangling off the bottom of the helicarrier by what looked like the thinnest of threads.   “Goddammit, don’t give me a heart attack like that again,” he said, hovering as he figured out how to get them both down without severing the thread holding them in the air.

            “Tony, we’ve got a bigger problem,” Sam said, trying to wave enough to get Tony's attention without making Peter drop him.

            “Bigger than the Manchurian Candidate trying to-“

            “Tony, _look_!” Looking down, Tony saw what Sam was point at. The other helicarrier was launching ahead of schedule, turbines making ripples on the waters of the Potomac.

            "Shit." As Sam shrugged out of his ruined flight pack Tony grabbed him and Peter, dropping them both on the access bridge to the Triskelion.  “Sorry about this, kid, but you’re both benched. Good work on that server room, though!”  He said, talking over Peter’s protests as he blasted back into the helicarrier.

            “Bucky, please, I know you’re still in there,” Tony heard Steve plead over the comms.  He arrived just in time to see Steve in a headlock, Barne's metal arm tight around his throat.  Steve's hands scrambled to get a grip on the arm as Barnes jammed the barrel of his pistol into Steve's kidney. Then,  _pow pow pow pow,_  Barnes emptied his clip, each bullet driving the previous one deeper through Steve’s tactical uniform until they were going straight into his abdomen.  Barnes let him drop to the floor and reached for the rifle on his back, eyes cold and dead as he stared at Steve lying at his feet.

            “Steve!” Tony shouted as he collapsed, his suit growing dark with alarming speed.  Natasha was already sprinting towards Steve as Tony fired on Barnes.  He blocked Tony’s shots with his metal arm but the impact still threw him off the metal footbridge.  As he twisted in the air he fired something at Tony’s armor that impacted with a sharp sound and Tony dropped a few feet at the sudden weight.

            “This shit again?” Tony swore as he shot into the air, trying to shake Barnes off and pry the grappling hook out of his leg.  He wobbled in his course when Barnes unexpectedly dropped off onto a catwalk, rolling with the impact.  Tony's repulsor blasts chased him down the walkway and then he was vaulting over a railing, dropping off the higher platform to land near Steve with an echoing clang.  Natasha pressed a dark cloth harder against Steve's stomach as she pulled a pistol from her back and fired on Barnes until crushed her pistol in his metal hand and threw her backwards. Behind them, Steve was using the railing to pull himself to his feet, the metal grating at his feet slick with blood.

            “I’m sorry, Steve,” Tony said as he lined up his sights on Barnes, his shoulder launchers initializing, and in that moment he  _was_ sorry, despite himself, sorry for Steve and even sorry for Barnes, having seen how easy it was for Hydra to pull his strings even after all this time.  The surprise at that realization made him hesitate just long enough for Steve to launch himself at Barnes, throwing them both over the side of the catwalk and through the bottom of the helicarrier.  With a frustrated curse Tony followed.

            Tony hit the water moments after they did; Steve was sinking quickly, already unconscious, but Bucky was struggling for the surface despite the metal arm weighing him down.  Tony grabbed the back of Steve’s uniform and after a moment, grabbed Barnes too.  Barnes fought him as soon as he felt himself rising into the air over the water, digging his metal fingers into the metal of Tony’s gauntlet as he tried to pry Tony’s fingers apart. “Dammit, Barnes,” Tony snarled, wanting more than anything to just throw the man back into the water and pray he sank right to the bottom.  But Tony just tightened his grip until he reached the Triskelion access bridge, setting Steve down carefully and tossing Barnes down a little less carefully.  Barnes rolled to his feet to face Tony, eyes narrow and lip curled.

            “This, I’m not sorry for,” Tony said as he blocked Bucky’s attempt to drive the knife through one of the seams in his armor and punched him in the face. The first punch staggered him, but the second one put him down, collapsing next to Steve. “It worked for Clint, maybe it will work for you.  Hey Sam,” Tony said on the open channels.  “Steve needs urgent medical attention. He’s here on the bridge, I gotta go back for the others.” 

            He heard Sam's affirmative, then there was the sound of someone’s communicator activating. For a long moment there was only silence before Thor finally said, “Stark, something odd is-" and then the communicator cut off.

            “Fuck,” Tony said with feeling as he barreled back into the domed glass room of the helicarrier. “Nat-“

            “The targeting systems are disabled,” Natasha said, panting as she sprinted down a catwalk with one of the Soldiers right behind her. “But the Soldiers aren’t, so let’s go.  Quickly.” She slid under the Soldier’s bullets towards Tony like she was sliding into home plate.  He caught her with an arm around her waist and accelerated away, curling around her as bullets followed them off the helicarrier.

***

            “This is taking too long,” Loki growled, acutely aware of each minute that passed, the need to return to Stark’s side an itch under his skin. On the other side of the room the Destroyer was still attempting to crush the sorcerer but Mordo was holding onto his shield with the ferocity of a man who knew his death was waiting on the other side.  Though Loki had magnitudes more power at his disposal, the fact that Mordo had an infinity gem in his hands meant that any attempt to overwhelm him through use of force would likely destroy Earth and shred reality.  The ensuing stalemate was infuriating.

            “We passed that point a long time ago,” Strange muttered, pacing furiously.  While they had been trying to outmaneuver Mordo the rest of the order had subdued the Hydra operatives and were dealing with the wounded and the dead, giving the three of them a wide berth.  “What else can we do?”

            “Take down your teleportation barrier.”

            Strange hesitated. “Are you sure?”  The barrier was currently the only thing keeping Mordo in the sanctuary; without it, their stalemate would turn into a chase as Mordo tried to escape with the gem.  Strange had tried to take them all to the mirror dimension to limit the damage Mordo could do with the Eye, but he hadn’t been strong enough to keep them there.  

            “I'm sure. On my mark.”  

***

             The next helicarrier was suspiciously quiet, almost empty; the few people waiting for them in the domed room fled before Tony could raise his hand to fire at them.  That made Tony more wary than seeing the small army that faced them at the last one.  He spent long moments scanning the room but found nothing, not even Thor, despite the Thor-sized hole in the glass of the dome.

             “Thor?” He called out as he followed Natasha to the server room.  At an intersection of hallways something flashed on his HUD, too fast for JARVIS to get a good read on it. Turning, he almost ran over the sorceress from the party.  She was no demure society girl this time; her dark eyes were savage and lip curled as she thrust a red bolt of light into Tony’s chest before he could flinch away, palm hitting him right in the arc reactor. He staggered back a step, surprised more than anything else, and when he glanced down he saw the red light dissipate in the glow of his arc reactor like mist burned off by the sun. 

            He looked up and saw her staring at his chest in disbelief.  He smiled.  “You should really learn how to use your words, Ms. Maximoff,” he said and punched her in the face with more force than was probably warranted but  _goddamn_  was it satisfying.  She staggered backwards and went to her knees, dabbing at the blood on her lip with a scowl. She raised her hands again and more red light rose from them to darted at Tony and curl around his armor.  Then there was the shriek of metal under strain and red lights began flashing in Tony’s HUD.  As alarms blared inside his helmet Tony started firing desperately at her and raced back down the hallway, trying to draw her away from Natasha.  She deflected his blasts easily, face tight with concentration, and plate by plate his armor started to buckle under the pressure of the her magic.  He felt his flight suit get damp and his suit less responsive as the plates started crushing and slicing the cables and mechanisms underneath.  The hallway quickly opened back into the domed room and then he was crashing to the metal grating as something landed on his back. 

            “I will peel you out of this armor like shrimp if I must,” a voice growled in his ear, thickly accented with Russian, and Tony’s HUD went crazy as the back plate was ripped off and tossed to the side with a loud clang. Tony blasted his repulsors, trying to shake him off, but too many systems were compromised; they slammed into the wall together and he could hear the Soldier's laughter in his ears as more plates were torn off his suit.  Tony took a deep breath and steeled himself before he activated the emergency ejection; the gears and metal of the suit screeched in complaint, but it opened enough to allow Tony to stagger out and start running, hand on his wrist as his brain screamed  _merchant of-_

            But the Soldier hit him from behind before he could finish the thought, his head hitting the metal grating with enough force that Tony saw spots.  As the man’s hands closed around his throat, cutting off his air, Tony tried to strike back, reaching for his eyes, his throat, anything to break his grip but the man’s reach was too long and his grip too tight. Tony closed his eyes and tried to concentrate even as his heart thundered in his chest and his lungs screamed for air.

***

            “Do it now," Loki said under his breath, and after a moment he sensed the shield around Kamar Taj disappear.  As soon as it fell Mordo carved a golden ring in the air even as he continued fending off the Destroyer.  Loki watched, motionless, eyes narrowed, ignoring Strange's increasing agitation to concentrate on the rogue sorcerer.  As Mordo stepped through his portal Loki’s fingers made a sharp gesture.  Reality flickered for a moment and when it reappeared they were in Asgard’s dungeons.  Mordo gaped at his surroundings, the flat white walls and golden force field that currently separated him from Loki and Strange. 

            Strange glanced around, started to say something, then stopped, before finally saying, “You can change the destination of someone else’s portal?”

            “The difficult part is concealing their true destination long enough for them to go through it,” Loki said absently. “Yet another reason that portals are an inferior form of travel.”

            “So what, now we have the same standoff but in a new location?” Strange glanced around the dungeon and held his hands up as the guards came around the corner, drawn by the sound of their voices. 

            “Stand down,” Loki ordered, giving them an imperious wave.  The guards halted, gave a short bow and returned the way they came.  “He can do what he likes in the confine of that cell, but he won’t escape,” Loki said as he dropped the illusion of Odin.  “I must assist Stark, but I will return to deal with him.”

            “Are you sure he can’t escape?”

            Loki gave him a look.  “I’m sure.”

            “But you didn’t have an infinity gem when you were here,” Strange pointed out, and Loki scowled.  In the back of his mind he heard the unmistakable discordant noise that was the alarm he'd set on Stark's bracelet and he lost any shred of interest he had in continuing this conversation.

            “Very well. You stay.”

            “But-”  

            “Give me your phone.” Strange handed it over without protest; Loki pressed it between his palms and handed it back. “Contact me if it looks like he may succeed at doing something significant," he ordered, and disappeared.

***

            Logically, Tony knew that it could only have been seconds before Loki’s spell started working, but it felt like years before the man’s snarls turned to screams, that became muffled screams as Tony’s suit finished coalescing around him. Opening his eyes, he saw the man staggering away, blood pouring from the ruined mess of his hands.  That’s when Tony realized that he could still feel the man’s fingers against his throat, severed and trapped by the armor as it sliced through them on an atomic level.  He ripped his helmet off as he started to gag, throwing the fingers away from him. The slick feeling of the blood sliding down his neck and chest was the final straw and he leaned over and lost his lunch, making a helpless noise at the pain in his throat as he retched.  The bearded Winter Soldier was still making deep grunting noises of pain as his blood made the catwalk slippery; Tony swallowed with difficulty around the bile taste in his mouth and shot him in the head.

            Loki appeared as Tony was bent over, struggling to inhale through his rapidly swelling throat. “Stark, what-"

            “Not mine,” Tony croaked, voice ruined, before Loki could get too alarmed at the amount of blood on Tony. “Could you-" he gestured at it, and Loki nodded his head. With a wave of his hand the sticky, cooling blood disappeared.  Loki gently tilted Tony's head up to examine what was probably going to turn into some spectacular bruising, and though his eyes flashed with rage he didn't say anything.  They both knew Tony could make it through the rest of the mission, so he would, and everything else could be said later.

            “Where is everyone?” 

            “Can’t find Thor,” Tony said hoarsely.  Glancing down, he saw a light flashing in his helmet. Putting it back on, he heard Natasha say, “Tony? If you’re there, I found Thor.  He’s in the server room and he doesn’t know who I am, he won’t let me get close.”

            “Loki’s coming,” Tony tried to say, but his voice was starting to get thin and thready.  He desperately wanted to just sit down for a while but he forced himself to follow Loki down the hall to the server room. “Witch,” he forced out as a warning.

            Loki nodded shortly, his expression intent but his eyes far away. When they reached the server room Natasha was leaning against the wall in the corner, a colorful bruise blooming on her jaw as she watched Thor.   Thor seemed to be lost in his own world, pacing and muttering, his armor and red cape looking painfully anachronistic against the stacks of whirring hard drives and servers.  Natasha turned her head and straightened when she saw them at the door.  “Thor must have run into the twins first.  When I got here the brother was down,” she said, pointing at a couple of racks that had been toppled over on the far side of the room, “but at some point he vanished.”

               Loki frowned, watching Thor, who hadn’t noticed their presence yet. “The witch and her brother are waiting for us by the exit,” he said.  “Wait outside while I wake up Thor.”  When they were gone, he approached cautiously until he caught Thor’s eye.  For a swift second the look on Thor’s face when he saw Loki was one of joy before his expression became shuttered. “Loki!” He raised his hand like he was going to touch Loki on the shoulder, but at the last moment he hesitated and lowered it again.  Loki realized Thor thought he was an illusion. “Why are you here, brother?”

            Loki waited for the swell of aggravated anger at the word _brother_ but for once it didn’t come.  Interesting.  “Where are we?” He asked curiously, wondering where the sorceress’s spell had taken Thor’s mind.

            Thor glanced around like he was seeing something other than endless rows of computing equipment.  Loki saw the flash of red in his eyes when he turned his head.  “I don’t know,” Thor said warily. “There are people celebrating, but…” He turned back to Loki and frowned. “What happened to your eyes?”

                “Nothing, Thor.  You’ve been bespelled.”

                Thor shook his head, rubbing a hand over his eyes.  “Then why can’t I-” he reached out to touch Loki and recoiled when he felt muscle and bone instead of the empty air of an illusion.  “You’re supposed to be dead.  Have you returned with a message from the Norns?”

                Loki sighed. “No, Thor.  A sorceress has put a spell on you, this is not a true vision.”

                “Impossible. I am too mighty for such tricks.”  Thor looked around as if searching for someone. “Where are the others? Where's Heimdall?”

                Loki scowled.  _Tricks._   There was that swell of anger he'd been expecting.   “Very well, Thor.  You are right. I have been sent by the Norns with a message.  The message is, _wake up._ ” When Thor looked up at him he slapped him so hard that Thor’s head snapped around and his body rocked with the force of the blow.  Loki smothered a satisfied grin when Thor glared at him.  “Are you with us now?”

            Now when Thor looked around there was no red in his eyes, no sense that he was seeing things that weren’t there.  “What-”

            “There was a sorceress here,” Loki explained again, patiently.  “She trapped you in your own mind.  What you were seeing wasn’t real.”

            Thor only grunted and hefted his hammer.  The red mark on his cheek was already fading. “Was it truly necessary that you strike me to end the spell?”

            _Probably not._ “It worked for Barton and Selvig,” Loki pointed out truthfully. Thor opened his mouth to argue the point but a shudder ran through the whole helicarrier, making the electronic boxes around them rattle in their metal racks.

            “You guys need to hurry,” Romanoff said, voice tinny in his ear. “The other helicarrier is firing on us.”

            By the time they destroyed the server room and reached the domed glass room the helicarrier was noticeably listing to one side.  Stark was standing in front of Romanoff, facing off with the sorceress and her brother; the catwalks between them had been severed to strand the twins on the far side of the room.  The sorceress’s hands were cradling a ball of coiling red light and her brother was watching, smug despite the dark bruise on his jaw.  Outside, the sound of the other helicarrier’s cannons firing on them was a muted thunder.

            “You are all going to die here,” she snarled, voice echoing around the room.

            “No, we’re not,” Loki answered, studying her carefully.  “Hydra is finished. You, this,” he said, gesturing to the other helicarrier looming closer and closer on their left, “are but the last paroxysms of a dying organization. There is time for you to flee, to make a life for yourselves, if you leave now.”

            “And leave you and him alive? Never.” She lifted her chin and her eyes glowed red with power as her gaze flickered between Loki and Stark, barely sparing a glance for Thor and Romanoff.  Loki recognized her rage, the hatred to the point of madness.  Beside him, Thor shifted restlessly and glanced at Loki; it was familiar to him as well.

            “Thor, get Romanoff out of here,” Loki said, refusing to meet his eyes. By now the helicarrier was shuddering almost constantly and it was only possible to stay upright by holding onto the railing. Stark had taken to the air to keep from sliding across the metal grating. Through the glass bottom of the room, flaming debris could be seen falling to the river below and the other helicarrier was looming closer and closer, the impact between them inevitable. “You won’t win this,” Loki called out, voice raised over the continuing sound of the helicarrier’s slow destruction. 

            “Watch me,” the woman growled, and the ball of light in her hands split the air between them with a sound like thunder and the smell of burnt rubber.

            Loki turned it aside and it blasted a hole in the hull of the ship, sending wind whipping around the room.   Green shards of light erupted from his hand, splitting, then splitting again as they flew through the air, though none landed as the woman disappeared and reappeared six feet to her left with her brother’s arms still wrapped around her waist.  Tony circled around behind them as she held out her hands and the metal catwalk at Loki’s feet began buckling and thrusting upward, trying to close around Loki like a fist.  He blasted at her with his repulsors and they impacted harmlessly against a shield of red light.  The metal trying to cage Loki dissolved as fast as it rose and reassembled into a walkway as Loki stalked closer. 

            The sorceress’s eyes blazed as shrapnel and debris began rising into the air and darted towards Loki and Tony.  The projectiles melted away as they approached Loki, but Tony was dodging car-sized pieces of metal grating and concrete that was trying to crush him against the side of the ship, blasting them to smaller pieces when he could.  Tony could see the woman screaming with rage, the room filled with the red light of her magic as she tried and failed to stop Loki’s advance.

             Then a new sound ripped through the air as the other helicarrier’s guns strafed across the room, shattering the glass walls and ripping through the metal of the catwalks.  Of them all, only the brother was fast enough to realize what was happening and react in time to shove his sister out of the way.

            A thousand rounds a minute is a very academic bit of information for most people, but Tony had been in the munitions industry for his entire life and he knew what a target looked like when it has been hit with a thousand rounds.   The brother had only been in the line of fire for seconds – maybe even only one – but any one of the sixteen high-caliber bullets that hit him in that second would have been enough.  Everything stopped, hovering in the air as the sorceress looked down at the body at her feet and slowly dropped to her knees beside it.  Writhing red light pulsed around her.

            “We have to go. Now!” Loki threw himself from the catwalk and landed on Tony and then they were crash landing on the grass near the Air Force Memorial.

            “Oww,” Tony groaned, which was about as much complaining as his aching throat would allow.  He rolled over so he could climb laboriously to his feet.  Loki was already staring over the river, where the helicarrier they had been on completed its slow collision with the other one just as it was engulfed in a globe of crimson sparks.  Concrete and steel became a cloud of shrapnel in seconds, creating a gaping hole in both helicarriers wherever the light touched them. They fell from the sky pretty quickly after that.

            “Damn,” was all Tony could think to say.

            Loki scowled. “I can do that.”

            Tony patted his arm soothingly in lieu of saying anything. He took off his helmet and ran a hand through sweaty hair.  He had to try a couple of times before he managed to croak out, “The woman?”

            “She’s alive but unconscious.  In the water.”  When Tony stared at him expectantly, Loki scowled. “What?” Tony gestured towards the water expressively, thinking _Get her before she drowns?_ very loudly at Loki. Something must have come across because Loki crossed his arms and said, “Why?”

            Tony rolled his eyes and gestured more emphatically towards the river, only able to scrape out a “Please?” from his swollen throat, by which he meant _I will argue the ethics of it later.  For now, before she drowns, could you please retrieve her and I will owe you a personal favor of your choosing?_

            Loki made a noise of aggravation as he disappeared.  He returned a few moments later, laying the woman more or less gently down on the grass.  Tony rolled her on her side and she coughed up some water.  Loki, already dry again, pressed a finger between her eyebrows.

            “She will sleep until I will her to wake.” He stood and looked at her and Tony saw a ghost of sympathy in his eyes.  “Should she choose to awaken.  She is in a great deal of pain.”

            Tony could only nod.   He stood and tiredly stared at the destruction on the Potomac, wondering how Rhodey’s mission had gone, how Steve and Barnes were doing, where the hell Peter and Sam were. Fuel from the helicarrier had set the river itself on fire and the sheer tonnage of the debris had displaced the water into the streets of DC.  From here, it looked like part of the helicarrier had even landed on the I-395 bridge, which meant that traffic was going to be fucked for months.  The fallout from this was going to be long and involved and just thinking about it was making Tony exhausted.  Though they’d won the battle Tony was afraid they’d already lost the war; the helicarriers were no longer a threat, but thanks to the sorceress Pierce had gotten the demonstration that he had wanted, as bright and flashy as anything he could have hoped for. 

            Tony’s shoulder brushed Loki’s as he swayed a little.  He felt like every inch of his body ached. Now that the adrenaline was fading away, his throat was a sharp, aching blaze of pain even as all of his other wounds were making themselves known, including the graze on his hip and his pounding headache. When he moved his head sticky, half-dried blood pulled at the hair on the back of his neck.  Tony was acutely aware of the inviting grassy expanse at his feet but he knew that if he sat down now he wouldn’t be able to get back up again.  He leaned over to get his helmet, intending to start helping with the cleanup, but got so dizzy that he had to take a knee.  Then cool hands were framing his face and he blinked to see Loki crouched beside him. “You’ve done enough, love,” he murmured.  “Rest. I’ll handle this.”

            Before Tony could respond – had Loki really called him _love_? Was he dying?! – lips brushed his forehead and everything went blessedly dark and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! So sorry for taking so long for this chapter! All that's left is the epilogue; if you have any lingering questions from the story, let me know in the comments so I can make sure everything gets addressed in the after-credits scenes. :D


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endings and new beginnings.

            Tony woke up slowly, blearily registering the light filtering in around the bedroom door.  He lay still for a long moment, surprised to find that he actually didn't feel as bad as he expected to. Then he swallowed  and tried to sit up, which resulted in a fiery blaze of pain in his throat and the full body scream of muscles that have been recently worked past exhaustion.  He whimpered and shuffled to the bathroom, where JARVIS had started up the shower, steam already curling towards the ceiling.  There was a bottle of liquid pain reliever on the bathroom counter and Tony downed his dose gratefully before he sat in the shower to let the hot water work its magic.  It took about twenty minutes for the pain in his throat to ease and for him to start feeling somewhat mobile again.  He got dressed slowly, grimacing when he had to bend over to put his pants on and raise his arms over his head for his shirt, but getting to the kitchen was less of a shuffle and more like a painful limp, which was progress of a sort.

            "Good morning Mr. Stark!" Peter said cheerily, his head popping up over the back of the couch when he heard Tony approach.  Tony hesitated and scanned Peter quickly but he seemed fine, climbing over the back of the couch like yesterday had been just another day.   _Te_ _enagers,_  Tony thought, scowling, trying to limp a little less as he continued to the kitchen.  Peter was wearing the oversize pajama pants and tank top that Tony had given him a few days ago, looking painfully young as the pants dragged the floor. "How are you feeling? Mr. Loki asked me to stay here until you woke up to see if you need anything."  Tony raised an eyebrow and started looking for his phone, finding it on the kitchen counter while Peter kept talking.  "I didn't know if you'd be hungry, and Mr. Loki said your throat would be hurting -" Peter snuck a glance at the bruises on Tony's throat, which Tony knew were spectacularly blue and purple and very clearly in the shape of someone's hands - "so I made you a smoothie and some coffee."

            Tony grunted and held up his phone.  _Where is everyone?_  he'd typed out. 

            Peter leaned over slightly to read it. "Um, well, Mr - I mean, Captain Rogers is still in the hospital. Mr. Barnes is in a holding cell downstairs, and everyone else is helping with the cleanup." 

            Tony nodded and poured himself a cup of life-giving coffee and added enough milk to it that it wouldn't be murder on his swollen esophagus before shuffling over.  He grabbed the smoothie too - smelled like strawberry and banana, a safe choice - and collapsed gratefully on the couch.   Peter joined him, looking at him expectantly.  

              _Why didn't you go home?_   Tony typed and handed his phone to Peter.

            Peter's face fell a little when he read the question and handed the phone back. "Oh, they are still trying to figure out all of the legal stuff about the Raft and the people who were put there without a trial.  Col Rhodes said I should probably sit tight until its all figured out.  But I've already talked to my Aunt May, she knows I'm fine and what happened and everything. She'll probably be coming over soon."  At Tony's grimace Peter added hurriedly, "but it's not like you have to meet her or anything, she just wants to know I'm okay."

            Tony took a long sip of his smoothie.  It was good, and the cold felt great on his throat even if swallowing was decidedly unpleasant. He followed it with a sip of coffee and typed _w_ _e can't just sit here in silence.  i can't talk so its on you.  tell me about yourself, Spider-Bro._

 ***

            "You know, I could just wait for you to die," Loki mused from his chair, sitting in the corridor outside Mordo's cell.  "You humans are such a frail race. No food or water for a few days and you wilt like cut flowers."

            Mordo watched him, unimpressed. "I could use the Eye to put myself in stasis."

            "No, you can't. An active mind is required to maintain control.  Manipulating infinity gems can be...difficult," Loki said, pulling out one of his new knives and flipping it from hand to hand.  "They tend to have minds of their own, and the laws of the universe don't like being bent. In fact, you are probably quite tired already, aren't you?" Mordo's eyelids flickered as his eyes followed the rhythmic movement of Loki's knife, his back as straight and proud as ever.  "Your eyelids must feel heavy, the weight of your body pulling you to the ground. Can't you feel the exhaustion in your fingertips? Your feet and your hands, warmth creeping through the muscle and bone?  You've been fighting so hard for quite a while now." Mordo's body was starting to sag, eyelids drooping.  Loki smiled. "Take a few deep breaths, maybe the fresh air will help you feel more awake."

            "What..." Mordo slurred, and then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.  The time gem tumbled from his hands.  Loki flipped the knife for a few more minutes, enjoying its perfect balance while he waited to be certain that the sleeping gas had done its work. 

***

            Three days later it was Rhodey's turn to babysit Tony, which involved pizza, cold beer, and at the moment, making fun of Rhodey's recent flurry of press appearances.  “I like how you took off your helmet to show off your heroic profile,” Tony croaked.

            “Shut up, Tony.  Should you even be trying to talk?” 

            Tony grinned at Rhodey’s scowl and turned back to the TV, where Rhodey, in his War Machine suit but with the helmet tucked under his arm, was saying “We discovered at great personal cost that these helicarriers were not meant to protect Americans, but terrify them.  Secretary Pierce claims that they are under attack by Iron Man, by Thor Odinson, by Steve Rogers – what he means to say is, these individuals, also known as the heroes of the Battle of New York, discovered his plan and have decided to take action before any lives are lost.”  Tony muted it after that; he’d already seen it a couple of times but watching the look on Pierce’s face when he realizes that Rhodey had given him enough rope to hang himself never got old.

            “I still can’t believe Pierce thought he could escape, hostage or no hostage.”  On the TV the network had minimized the footage of Rhodey in favor of whatever the anchorwoman was saying, but this was one of Tony’s favorite parts – Pierce grabbed the nearest warm body, who happened to be a junior senator from California, and had produced a gun from somewhere.  The transformation from shock to fury on the woman’s face was worth watching in slow motion, though the part where she stabbed Pierce in the foot with her high heel and then headbutted him was best played at normal speed. Rhodey took over from there, easily overpowering Pierce’s bodyguards and subduing Pierce himself.

            “Rats in corners, man,” Rhodey said with a shrug, but the corners of his lips were curling as he watched the footage.

            Tony turned on the couch to face him, glad that his soreness was finally ebbing. “So after this you definitely made general, right?  When’s your pinning ceremony? Do I get to do the honors?”

            “Sorry Tony, the President already asked.” Rhodey reached for the remote and changed the channel to a mindless action movie, one of the  _Ocean's 11_ sequels.  Outside the sun was setting, casting orange light in one corner of the room.

            “Oh, well, the _President,_ ” Tony said, rolling his eyes.  “Am I at least invited?” 

            Rhodey looked at him in disbelief. “You must be joking.”

            “What?”

            “Tony, it’s a whole big thing. Like, _everyone_ is going to get a medal after I get pinned on. It’s being held in the Rose Garden.  All of the major networks are televising it.  How did you completely miss the memo?”

            Tony made a face. “Oh. That.”

            “Yeah. That.”

            Tony picked at a spot on the couch, jaw set.  “I just don't feel like there’s much to celebrate.  I mean, Steve is still regrowing his kidney,  I’m still on a soft food and liquid diet, and Barnes is back to being nonverbal and barely leaving his room.”  It was like having a ghost in the tower; food vanished and objects moved, but Tony hadn't seen Barnes' face since the fight.  "It’s all theater, just political bullshit.”

            Rhodey let out a long sigh.  He knew that part better than anyone; after the revelation of Pierce's relationship to Hydra, the controlled release of the Hydra files had been causing political earthquakes all over DC.  Rhodey and Director Hill, who'd been found stalking through the halls of the Triskelion with murder in her eyes after escaping from Hydra captivity, had become the pillars of stability amidst the upheaval, hence all the press conferences. “Well, it can be that _and_ it can be well-deserved recognition for everything you’ve been through.  Sam’s going to get one.  So is the kid.  Are you going to ruin it for everyone because you’re bitter and jaded?”

            That was a low blow.  Rhodey must have seen Tony's phone blowing up with texts from Peter thanking him for the new Spidersuit.  “Fine. You win. I'll even be a good sport about it."

            "Also you owe us t-shirts," Rhodey smirked, reaching for more pizza.

            "Way ahead of you.  I hope you like tie-dye." 

***

            "So are we going to talk about it?"

            "About what?"

            "That you  _looooooove_ me and want to  _huuuuuuug_ m-hey! Hey! Quit it with the cold hands! That shit's  _really co_ \- JARVIS! Call for help!"

***

            “Does Midgard still bore you?” Loki asked without preamble, appearing from nowhere to take the seat across from Thor.

             Thor looked up at him in surprise.  He set the tablet down and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers templed as he studied Loki. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Now that this business with Hydra has been dealt with, I doubt my abilities will be of much use here anytime soon.”

             “Well, I have a way for you to serve this realm, though I can’t say where this particular mission may take you.  I only know where you can start, if you are interested.”

             Thor considered him for a long time, wondering how far to trust a secretive mission from Loki.  As ever, though, there were no clues to be had on Loki's impassive face. “Go on,” he said finally.

             “Bruce Banner is missing. He is no longer in any of the Nine Realms.” Now there was an expression of mild distaste in the way that Loki's eyes narrowed slightly, and Thor knew they were both thinking the same thing. Now he understood why Loki was not interested in going himself.

             That made Thor’s eyebrows rise. “How?”

             “That is one of many questions. How did he leave Midgard and why? Where is he, and what has he been doing?  He is one of the most powerful warriors this realm has produced, and before too long before he will be needed here to defend it.”  

             “I see." Thor scratched his jaw. "Well. Sounds exciting. When do I start?”

             “Now, as far as I am concerned.  The best place to start, I think, is Sakaar.” Thor shrugged and stood, grabbing his hammer from where it had been leaning against the coffee table. Loki stood as well and now his gaze was measuring.  He said, "Watch your back, Thor," and that was the extent of his farewell. 

             Thor felt the twist in his gut that meant that Loki had sent him away through the dark paths, and after a few long, breathless moments in the blackness between, he was emerging on Sakaar, shading his eyes from the glare of its bright sun, barely dimmed by the overcast sky.  Either by accident or design - probably design, honestly - Loki had sent him to what appeared to be an endless field of garbage, littered with the detritus of hundreds of dismembered space ships half-buried in mud.  He turned in a slow circle, trying to find a direction to head towards that might be better than any other, when he spotted a small, motley group of individuals approaching him warily, weapons raised.

             "Hey!" he said, with a wide grin, raising his hand in a friendly wave. 

***

           "What in the hell happened to this thing, Loki?" Tony stared at the Destroyer, which from the waist down looked like it had been left out in the rain for decades: the insulation on the wires was dry-rotted and the wires underneath corroded, the struts warped and rusted. When it moved, the squeal of abused machinery made Tony's heart hurt.

            "Time gem," Loki said absently, ignoring the scowl Tony sent in his direction as he turned a page in his book.  

            "This is why we can't have nice things," Tony informed him.  "I'm going to have to replace everything." He studied the damage for a few long moments then said, "you know, I think this kind of damage goes beyond the original scope of our agreement.  I mean, I'm basically going to end up building you one and a half Destroyers."

            That made Loki put down what he'd been reading and raise an eyebrow.  "Go on."

            Tony rested his chin on his hand and batted his eyelashes at Loki.  "You know, I've never been to Asgard."

            "Oh?" Loki made an interested noise. He drummed his fingers on the cover of his book and Tony could tell he was fighting a smile.  "Well, you do have a Bifrost now."

            "Yeah but we still haven't figured out how to steer it yet." Tony snapped his fingers as if something just occurred to him.  "You know, _you_ could take me! I mean, you're the king of Asgard and I've never even seen your throne."

            Loki's smile finally spread slowly across his face at that.  He closed his book and stalked over to Tony, who felt his heart beating faster at the look in Loki's eyes.  "Why do I get the feeling that you have something other than sight-seeing in mind?"

            "Well," Tony drawled, tilting his face up for Loki's kiss. "Maybe a few things.  I mean, how many opportunities does a person get to have sex in a palace?"

            Tony felt the vibration of Loki's thoughtful _hmm_ against his throat as Loki lifted him onto the work table, sliding clever hands under his shirt. “I could perhaps be persuaded to defile the ancient and storied throne of Asgard.  With the right incentives."

            "Like what? Because I figured there would be a lot of kneeling, on my part.  That's what you do before kings, right? Get on your knees?"  Loki made a sound deep in his chest and his hands tightened on Tony's hips.  Tony grinned and kept going.  "There are so many possibilities. I could wear the armor you gave me, like I'm part of an official delegation from Earth.  Or my nicest suit, that one you like so much.  Or maybe I'm in Asgard as spoils of war, wearing nothing but the bracelet you gave me-" 

***

            Loki was laying in bed next to Stark's, listening to his deep, rhythmic breathing, when he made his decision.  He trailed light fingers down Stark's outflung arm as a silent goodbye and dressed en route to Asgard, his sudden appearance in Odin's chambers making Huginn and Muninn flap their wings and mutter grumpily.  He stared down at Odin's sleeping form for so long, trying to find the right words, that the ravens fluffed their feathers sleepily and started to tuck their heads back under their wings.

            "You may have your throne back, Allfather," Loki said finally, abandoning the notion of trying to explain himself, his reasons for taking the throne and now his reasons for leaving it.  Especially when the urge to stab the man still itched under his skin.  It had been but a year since this man had had him wrapped in chains and sentenced him to life in the dungeons, disowned him and consigned him to oblivion.  The memory of it made his hands ball into fists at his side.  "Something sinister this way comes, and I must ready the Nine Realms for it."  He summoned Gungnir and leaned it against the wall next to Odin's sleeping body. "Perhaps one day, if you ask nicely enough, I'd be willing to return when the throne becomes too heavy a burden for you. Until then, I wish you joy of your empty palace."   

            As Loki strode away, the golden haze around Odin began to thin, and after a few moments he took a deep breath and his eye opened.  Above him, his ravens cawed a welcome.

***

            There is a book secured by loose chains on a sliding metal rack that serves as a shelf in Kamar Taj.  On the front is an engraving of the Eye of Agamoto, and inside are pages and pages of notes on the proper use of the artifact.  The author also included notes on the nature of time and on realms without time and the beings that exist there.  In the course of one night, Loki read this book from cover to cover and took specific notes on a particular spell.  Afterwards, he gave a respectful nod to Wong as he left Kamar-Taj and then the next evening proceeded to creep Stark out by staring at him thoughtfully throughout dinner.

            In his defense, Stark did an admirable job ignoring it for the first twenty minutes, but as soon as his hunger was slated he sat back in his chair and pointed his fork at Loki. “Ok, what. What is it, why are you looking at me like that?  Am I already getting a rash from this crazy food you got on Alfheim?”

            Loki looked at him for another moment over his plate of untouched food and empty glass of wine.  Then he leaned forward and took Stark’s fork, setting it down gently on his plate and pushed it aside.  Stark frowned at the serious look on his face.  “Stark,” Loki said slowly, “if I said I could make you immortal, would you want it?”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr, I'm on it](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dracusfyre)


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